Returns
by BeshterAngelus
Summary: Serial murder is not up Neal Caffrey or Peter Burke's alley, but it is up Fox Mulder's. A series of high society murders has the FBI turning to its former reject and star profiler for help.
1. Chapter 1

"You realize you just had me hack into the file database of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, right?"

Somewhere over the dark notes of chocolate and burnt almond somewhere deep in his espresso, Moz's unctuous, nasal tones cut through Neal Caffrey's sense of personal well being with the day. Not that this was a terribly unusual experience with his best friend; Moz's first line response always seemed to land somewhere between fretful Jewish mother and raging paranoid. But first thing on a Saturday morning, and in a crowded, Manhattan coffee bar, the words "hack" and "Federal Bureau of Investigation" jarred the contentment out of his good mood.

"Hey, Moz, why don't you just announce that a little louder for the rest of the bar to hear, I'm not sure they caught on to your illegal activity yet," Neal smirked, stretching long legs out in front him as he leaned back comfortably. "Besides, weren't you the one who told me that the FBI security measures on their server were so bad you were surprised they even bothered with protection."

"Doesn't mean I'm not afraid one of your Fibbie friends won't show up at my door, or worse…NSA demanding national secrets!" Moz fretted as he pulled out several, thick manila folders from his briefcase, stacking them on the tiny table, and glaring at Neal through his thick glasses. "The FBI has files on everyone and everything. They know where Jimmy Hoffa is buried; they have a JFK file so big you could use it to stop traffic. And I can't even begin to tell you about Area 51."

"Area 51," Neal snorted softly, reaching for one of the files. "Taken to chasing aliens, Moz?"

"It was always a side interest of mine, my great-aunt Mildred swore her first husband was abducted one night while playing poker with his buddies. Of course, no one told Aunt Mildred that her husband really skipped town with his secretary, but the story always made me curious."

"Moz, you never cease to amaze me," Neal grinned quietly, flipping open the file of printed papers. His best friend and closest confidant, Mozzie had fingers in just about every sort of pie imaginable. Somehow, though, conspiracy hadn't been a flavor of pie Neal had thought of.

"Hey, you were the one having me troll through the Bureau looking for dirt on Fowler, you muck in the swamp, and you expect to get a little dirty." Moz nervously ran a hand across his bald head and settled in the seat across from Neal.

"I must say, I'm impressed, it looks like you pulled everything from Fowler's birth certificate to a speeding ticket he got in high school." Neal's fingers flipped through the stack of information, so thick he couldn't even read it all. "Where the hell did you find this stuff?"

"Ahhh, grasshopper, one learns the ways of the Fibbie when one must deal with the Fibbie. The Bureau's more anal about background checks than anyone, they have whole departments that do nothing but call people up and ask what flavor of toothpaste you use in the morning. They store that info in super, secret servers hidden somewhere in West Virginia or something, just in case someone like your suit friend ever needs to look it up.

"My suit? Since when did Peter become 'my suit'?"

"He's a suit, he's your friend, and he seems to be the only one in the Bureau who doesn't freak out when people say, 'Oh, this is Neal Caffrey, world-class art thief and our consultant.' I say that makes him yours."

It sounded so ridiculous Neal bit back the smile forming at the very idea. "You make him sound like a puppy, Moz. Besides, aren't you the one always coming to Elizabeth's beck and call when she needs your special expertise."

"Mrs. Suit and I have a unique relationship outside the bounds of the reach of federal law," Moz's heavy eyebrows rose loftily. "Which reminds me, we need to hurry this up, she needs some help with this neurologist convention she's working this week."

"Consulting on parties now, are we?"

"You know, I put a lot of work into getting these files," Moz turned on the Jewish mother voice again.

"Right," Neal grinned, sipping at his coffee and leafing through the pages. It would take weeks, months even to find anything, even a kernel of information in these files, and that was if there was anything to find. Fowler, despite his cocky arrogance, wasn't an idiot; he couldn't have managed to maneuver himself into his safe and powerful OPR position if he was. But there was more to Fowler than just FBI bad guy, a pit bull in a suit who struck fear into the hearts of the regular special agents from his seat with the Office of Professional Responsibility. Kate had told him there were others, people who were controlling other people, to trust no one.

How did one maneuver around a man who sat on one of the most powerful entities within the FBI? Especially when he had control of the one woman Neal trusted and loved implicitly.

"There is no way we are going to get through all of this, Moz," he sighed, closing the file and nudging it next to his now empty coffee cup and the piles of other records Moz had so meticulously printed out. "I need to know who is controlling Fowler, who the man is who wants the music box….who it is that has Kate."

What he needed was an inside informant in the FBI. Strange, he worked as a consultant for the Bureau, and had been chained to it, literally, since he stepped out of prison nearly a year ago. He rubbed at the tracker on his ankle with one, well-shod toe. That anklet and his prison record meant that the notoriously closed ranks of the FBI would never open up for him, no one would, not even his handler, Peter Burke. If anything Peter would be the worst, believing he was saving Neal from himself by refusing him assistance in further provoking the likes of Garret Fowler.

All for the girl who left him behind…

"I used to know some guys who could have torn through this," Mozzie seemed to recognize the enormity of the task as well, staring forlornly at the pile. "Real characters, knew them for years from information hacking circles, we used to have a shared interest in the strange and the paranormal."

"Moz, you are unfolding right before my eyes," Neal grinned, unsurprised that even after years of knowing his fellow con-artist he still didn't know all there was to discover about Mozzie. And that was pretty much how Mozzie liked to play it, even with Neal, the less known about all of his secrets, the better it was.

"Well, I said 'used' to know, they aren't around anymore. Three of them ran an underground newspaper, filled to the gills with all sorts of government conspiracies and alien activities, the sort of stuff that no one talks about and everyone tries to cover up. My Aunt Mildred used to have a lifetime subscription, she'd pass me her old copies."

Mozzie, the most paranoid and practical person Neal knew, and he was seriously sitting here discussing alien conspiracies with him. "You don't really believe in that stuff…do you?"

"I'll say they made a persuasive argument," Moz hedged carefully. "They were legends in their time, amazingly good hackers, I wouldn't be surprised what they found. Besides, rumor has it they had an informant in the FBI who saw a lot of this stuff first hand."

An informant? Really? The wheels in Neal's head turned slightly. Informants to outside sources could be sympathetic ears...or easily blackmailed into helping a worthy cause. "Does anyone know who it was?"

"Nope, they kept it secret, though I have a few suspicions. There was one guy in particular with the Bureau, he worked almost exclusively with this stuff, but the thing is no one knows for certain. You and I both know in this business you start mouthing off about who your sources are, you don't get a source for very long."

Whether one was uncovering secret government plots or dealing in illegal, art forgeries, Neal understood that statement better than most. "Think any of that is true?"

Mozzie shrugged hunched shoulders skeptically, the sort of philosophy Moz took with everything he did in life. "Who am I to say if it is true or not. I do know one thing. The three of them ended up dead under mysterious circumstances. Some say the Feds ordered it, others the CIA. All I know is that there are three graves in Arlington with their name on it, and no one can say how it happened. You tell me, guys who die of normal circumstances get burials like that?"

"You know you really are disturbingly paranoid, don't you?"

"It's worked to your benefit on more than one occasion, hasn't it?" Moz snorted, gathering files. "This coming from a man who sees evil conspiracies around the girl who broke his heart."

"It's not a made up one, Moz, Kate wouldn't just lie to me on this." The argument was so old now between them that he hardly got irritated with Moz about it anymore.

"So what are we going to do with all this information on Fowler? There's a ton of it, what do you hope to find."

"Something…anything…leverage." Neal bit his lip as he studied the stacks, admittedly at a loss as to what to do with it. "I need to find out who is pulling Fowler's strings, and why, and what, if anything Kate has to do with it."

It was the first time he admit it out loud, that niggling doubt, the one he had been ignoring for months now, since the picture of Kate in the airport surfaced, the black and white surveillance of her with the man with the ring. Moz and Peter weren't the only ones to think that Kate was up to something more with this. They were just the only two to admit it out loud. And he had to know why, if it were true.

"Why don't you go to my place, get started. June can use some company." Neal waved absently at the piles, rising.

"Oh yeah, I owe her $50 after our last game of poker," Moz murmured absently, gathering his things. "I keep forgetting her husband ran with Frank Sinatra."

"Always had a soft spot for the ladies, Moz." Neal grinned, even as one particularly fine, brunette specimen of the female sex caught his eye with a slow, appraising smile.

"Look who's talking," Moz snorted. "Have fun with the suit."

"Yeah, let me know what you find," Neal murmured absently as the brunette's smile widened appreciatively.


	2. Chapter 2

_FBI New York City Field Office Headquarters_

_New York_

"Do you realize the time, Caffrey?" Peter Burke stood waiting by the elevators as they opened into the lobby of the FBI's White Collar crime division; eyeing his watch with exaggerated impatient.

"You like your mocha with soy milk, right?" Neal held out his piece offering instantly, grinning at the other man who took it with disapproving gratefulness.

"And how is Mr. Haversham this morning?" Peter fell into step beside his charge, the familiar tenor of most of their mornings. Peter was as punctual and particular as Neal was carefree, in to work early, at his desk, and usually well into a case before his more-or-less partner managed to breeze into the office of a morning with a shining smile and a tip of his ever-present hat for the ladies, and some excuse for Peter. It was to the point he hardly noticed anymore…except for today.

"Why is it you assume that if I decided to treat you to coffee I had to be up meeting with Mozzi?" Neal affected hurt, and did it well.

"Because I watched your ankle bracelet at the coffee house for two hours. And you can't drink that much coffee."

"We really need to get you a life, Peter," Neal whistled, tossing his hat on his desk.

"I have one, it's babysitting you. Now come on, we have someone here to see us." Peter jerked his head to the clear front of his window office, a ramrod straight, female figure sitting in a chair in front of it, reviewing a file.

"OPR again?" For whatever reason that made Neal's skin prickle, the idea of one of Fowler's lackeys wandering in for another go at either Peter or himself.

"No, something different." Peter drawled, a deliberate vagueness to his answer that caught Neal's attention and set him on edge. The White Collar division in New York was a smaller office; few of the workers in the bullpen were left out of the loop of what was going on with everyone else. For Peter to be hush about it meant that either it was worse than OPR, or it was something the Bureau as a whole wanted very quiet. For their sakes, Neal was hoping for the latter. Curiously he followed the agent up the steps, pulling up a dazzling smile for the dark haired woman who watched them from inside.

"Agent Ponce, late but here after all, this is Neal Caffrey." Peter shot him a pointed look, one Neal carelessly ignored as he focused instead on the agent who rose to take his hand. Pretty….about his age, early thirties, a bit severe in the black suit, but that seemed to go with the territory of being a female agent in the Bureau, her direct gaze was friendly, even curious.

"Anita Ponce, I've heard a lot about you Mr. Caffrey."

"Neal," he corrected, holding her hand for just a fraction longer than was usually necessary. It was instinct with him, to turn on the charm, to gain the good will and trust, to put people off guard with him. Who would think this nice, handsome, interesting man could possibly be a thief? But his aim here wasn't to charm Agent Anita Ponce out of her paintings or jewels, but to see if she were friend or foe. It seemed that it was hard to know which was which these days in the Bureau, or so he was learning.

"So you've heard a lot about me," he moved on smoothly, noting the knowing gleam in her dark eyes, the smirk that she just barely hid as she slipped her fingers from his. "All good things I hope?"

"Interesting things," she chuckled, as beside them Peter coughed, his not-so-subtle hint for Neal to cut the crap.

"Such as," Neal ignored him as him, curious as he met Ponce's slow smile with one of his own.

"They warned me, Agent Burke, he could charm the underwear off a nun."

"A nun, really, haven't heard that analogy before."

"One of my Mexican grandmother's favorites, they weren't lying."

"Gift from my Irish grandfather, so what else do they say about me, Agent Ponce?"

"Neal," Peter cut in snappishly, glancing between the two, but reserving his irritation for his chief consultant. "Agent Ponce is with the Violent Crimes Unit. She's here to discuss a case with us?"

Violent Crimes….that was different.

"Right," Neal sighed, settling in a chair beside the desk, not missing the grin that Ponce shot at him before holding up the case file she had been reviewing when they entered.

"Do either of you know who the Whitmore family is?" She passed the file towards Peter's outstretched hand, suddenly all business again as she settled primly into her seat.

"Yeah, one of the richest families in New York," Neal supplied as Peter scanned through the file, curiously pick through the paperwork quickly.

"Not just one of the richest, one of the oldest," Ponce clarified, nodding to the file in Peter's hand. "I think only my ancestors have been in the Americas longer than the Whitmores, you go back far enough you find Dutch, Pilgrims, a signer of the US Constitution, Civil War generals, you name it. The Whitmore made their money early on, mostly in textile trade here in New York, and invested early in the emerging textile industry during the Industrial Revolution. They were some of the most rich and powerful people before even the Rockefellers and Vanderbilts made a splash on the scene."

"They're one of the few families to have survived with their wealth in tact from that era. Most everyone else was wiped out with the economic fluctuations of the time." And interesting history lesson, but one Neal didn't need. Why was Ponce curious about it? "What does this have to do with Violent Crimes?"

"You know of course about the Amanda Whitmore."

"Young, beautiful, the head of the Whitmore Family Trust, yeah." Peter closed the file, passing it over to Neal with a curious, thoughtful look. "It was all over the papers here, scared the rich and the pompous in the city. She was found killed in her apartment, NYPD suspected a home invasion."

"That's what they told the media." Ponce voice was grim, and unspoken note of disapproval for how her fellow law enforcement agents handled the situation. "The Whitmore family requested it, they didn't want the details of Amanda's death to get out."

As if on cue, Neal flipped past the 302 and initial paperwork to glossy, colored photographs of the grotesque, bloody crimes scene, and hissed loudly, his blue eyes flying open in alarm as they flew first to Peter's grimly understanding face, then to Ponce's. "Jesus, I can see why." He studied them for the briefest of moments. Amanda Whitmore had been a known beauty in the city, elegant, stylish, with the brains to match. These photos of her showed nothing of the woman who graced the society pages of New York, but rather a bruised, battered shell of a human, blonde hair matted with blood, a face so swollen it hardly looked like the right woman.

"She was found three days after she was last seen leaving her office in midtown. Her housekeeper thought she had left for the Hamptons for the weekend, she had a vacation home there. All signs at the crime scene show that she was probably attacked as soon as she got home, tortured for several hours before being bound up like that. But that's not what killed her."

Neal closed the file quickly, sliding it on the desk, staring at it in brief horror as he tried to wipe out the images that seemed seared in his mind now. "Do I want to know how?"

"Strangulation." Ponce grimaced in sympathetic understanding. "No fingerprints, no fiber, not even a skin cell. Hell, not even security caught anything unusual on tape. The only clue we have is a single note, found on her coffee table." She reached for the file, flipping it open past the photographs, towards a photocopied paper she pulled out and laid before them.

"Someone is a fan of Keats, then." Peter's knowing chuckle gave both Neal and Agent Ponce pause at they turned to the senior agent in surprise. "What?"

"You know Keats?" Neal couldn't contain the glee at the very idea.

"Yeah, well I had to take a class on 19th century Romantic poetry in college." Peter frowned coolly at Neal's giddy amusement, affecting the dignity of an FBI agent. "I'm not completely ignorant of the finer things in life."

"Really…is that a requirement for degrees these days?"

"Moving on," Peter ignored him. "So you are sure that this note came from our murderer."

"Sure of it," Ponce nodded, frowning heavily as she slumped ever so slightly before them. "That's why we are here. That note isn't the only example we have." From a briefcase beside her she pulled out two more files, setting them on the table with Amanda Whitmores. "Christi MacNichol, age 30, one of the youngest CFO's in history, Rachel Lidow, 33, executive vice president. Found in their homes in the same condition as Amanda Whitmore, down to the notes. All talented, beautiful, powerful successful women in their own right."

"You have yourselves a serial killer on your hands, Agent Ponce." Peter murmured, flipping open Christi MacNichol's file, a stunningly pretty, African-American woman smiling up at them.

"NYPD wasn't sure, not till Whitmore's death at least. They treated Lidow's as a simple home invasion. MacNichol's threw them. That was when they started wondering if it wasn't more than that. This is where things start getting complicated for the Bureau. NYPD is notorious about its pissing contests with us over jurisdiction. They already are a bit touchy because this is our largest field office, and we have our fingers over several of their high profile cases. It was only after Amanda Whitmore's death that anyone with the police reached out to the FBI, and that was only after the Whitmore family got involved."

"Don't tell my you have more of these?"

"Worse than that. The MO of the three women's murders matches exactly a series of murders fifteen years ago. Two in Seattle, one in San Francisco, the rest here, six all together, everything matching, down to the letters with the Keats."

Neal frowned, fifteen years was a long time to drop and pick up ones killing spree, wasn't it? "I'm not into serial killers or…murder for that matter, Agent Ponce, but isn't that a bit long for a serial killer to hold off?"

"Long, but not unheard of, in this case however, it is nigh on impossible. The original case ended fifteen years ago with us IDing a suspect. Before the Bureau could swoop in thoughe, the man killed himself, .22 shotgun to the face." A fourth file was produced out of the agent's seemingly never-ending briefcase, an older, fatter file than the other three. "Jonathan Harvey, a art purveyor, DNA from four of the six crime scenes put him with the victims. Not enough to hold up in court for all of them, but at the time the rich and powerful of New York were scared silly, they just wanted the case to be closed and for them to forget about it. The FBI was happy to oblige. Not everyone was happy about it, frankly. The lead investigator filed a protest, demanding that the case stay open till they were sure that Harvey was dead, but no one listened. In the end, with the DNA, the autopsy findings on Harvey's body, and the witness reports, the Bureau closed it down."

Peter wasn't buying it. The sideways look he shot Neal said as much. Peter didn't work VCU, but you didn't need to sense this was starting to look as if somehow the Bureau was going to have egg all over its face. "So unless Harvey is killing people from beyond the grave, we are dealing with a copycat?"

"That's what NYPD said, and that's what I said when I got the case. Everything screams that someone is copying Harvey's murders. I've had our crime labs all over this case, but so far nothing, no DNA, no fingerprints, nothing to pinpoint our new guy. And then there is the added wrinkle." She reached a long, manicured finger over to the photocopied note, tapping it gently. "I've run the note against the ones from the original cases through our crime labs in Quantico. Done it three times now, each time it comes back as an exact match." Her dark eyes flickered to Neal's. "Now, I know you know a thing or two about forgery, how do we get an exact match on a dead man's hand?"

Ponce was right, the question was right up Neal's ally, but he had no more answer for it than she did. "Someone might have found samples of his writing?"

"Fifteen years after the fact?" Ponce was dubious, shaking her head. "This is where we find ourselves now, a copycat murder, hysterical, powerful families, and worse. Amanda Whitmore's family is more than just demanding justice for their daughter. Her uncle is Robert Whitmore, senior US Senator for New York. He's also the second most powerful seat on the Judiciary Committee."

"In other words he sits on the committee that can dredge up any nasty bit of detritus it wants to make life for the FBI very, very difficult." Peter groaned, leaning back in his chair, looking none too pleased with the idea.

"Including the habits of some agents of releasing Federal prisoners into protective custody in order to use them as consultants." Ponce grim look slid to Neal.

"Me…I thought I was legal." The tracking bracelet on his ankle itched painfully then, the physical reminder of the chain that still tied him hopelessly to the FBI.

"You are, Neal, that doesn't mean that the Justice Department likes it." Peter assured him through a darkening scowl. "The truth is you're hardly the only skeleton in the Bureau's closet they would rather keep buried."

"Someone let Senator Whitmore in on the case from fifteen years ago, and how messily it was closed out. Now he's on the warpath, threatening to expose it and the FBI's shoddy handling of cases before the Judiciary Committee unless 'we give these families justice'. Which of course means that now the FBI Director is looking towards VCU to get this case solved and explained to Senator Whitmore's satisfaction before he carries through with his threat. Whitmore is demanding that the original case files be opened back up, that the original investigators be brought on board, and another look taken into Harvey's death."

"Whitmore doesn't believe Harvey's dead either?"

"All Whitmore saw was the original case file, which included the lead investigators letter of protest. He's using that as his ammunition. He wants that guy on the case, and he wants his insights. Problem is, he's been out of the FBI for eight years now. And he isn't exactly the easiest guy to track down."

Something about all of this wasn't adding up for Neal. A case of serial murders, an angry senator, an old agent now gone, all of that he could understand, it sounded like the makings for a really fine mess for the FBI. What Neal couldn't understand is why Ponce was sitting in Peter's office, telling them about this. Judging by the polite confusion from Peter as he handled each of the files, he didn't know either.

"So where do we fit in, Agent Ponce," Neal broached the question first. Neal was the outsider here, the criminal who acted as the consultant on these cases. He had some understanding of the inner workings and politics that made up the FBI on these cases, but not a lot, and not enough to understand the subtext of why Violent Crimes would be approaching White Collar Crimes for assistance on a murder case. Obviously there had to be a reason for it…and for him in particular to be involved.

Ponce's dark eyes glittered as she met his. "Cutting to the chase, Caffrey. VCU is coming to you for two reasons. The first is pretty obvious. So far the profile we have on our perp is simple, he targets wealthy, powerful, career minded women. All three of our victims were single at the time of their death, either just out of a relationship or having been out of one for some time. High society victims, ones who run in rarefied circles." Her smile was slow and knowing as she leaned back studying Neal. "Sounds like something up your alley, Caffrey."

"Mine," he managed to choke, disbelieving eyes flickering between Ponce and Peter. "But I deal with fraud, forgery, theft…not…murder." He felt himself go slightly green as his gaze finally fell on Amanda Whitmore's file, the photographs of her death still vivid in his mind. "I…er…don't do well with…you know…dead."

"What Neal is trying to say," Peter tried not to chuckle too loudly, "is that murders aren't his thing. And frankly I'm a little loath to loan him to other agents. Neal doesn't always play well with others."

"Hey, I'm sitting right here."

"We don't intend on stealing Caffrey from you, Agent Burke," Ponce's smile broke into a grin at Neal's protests. "In fact, I am hoping to recruit you for this case."

"Me?" It was not Peter's turn to protest. "I haven't done a serial case since I first got out of Quantico, it's been years…."

"I know, but you and Caffrey know this world better than almost anyone at VicU does. Harvey was an art dealer, which was his was how he got into this society, to his victims. Our guess is that whoever our copycat is, they are using the same method, some way of gaining the trust of these women through something they all have in common, the art world, securities, the type of things that your division deals in, Burke."

"My division, yes, but…." Peter stuttered to a stop, waving an expansive, flailing hand over the files on his desk. "Ponce, you're the one telling me Bureau's ass is on the line on this one. The last time I worked on a full profile was Quantico, and after that I only worked with VCU briefly before I was moved to White Collar."

"I know," Ponce lifted her shoulders in understanding. "And that's the second reason we are coming to you. We need you two to convince the lead investigator back on the case." She smiled sweetly at Peter's suspicious look.

"Convince…why convince?"

"Let's just say that he and the FBI aren't exactly on the best of terms." It was a diplomatic answer, one that hinted that Peter wasn't going to like what he found out bout this.

"Why is that," Neal wondered, curious.

"Let's just say that his ideas and those of the Bureau didn't quite mesh. He had some opinions that were a bit out there….sometimes way out there." Some look, some silent understanding passed between Ponce and Peter, one Neal didn't quite understand, and he wasn't so sure he liked. What was "out there" supposed to mean? It meant something to Peter, judging by the dawning suspicion and muttered denial.

"No…no, no, no, no…"

"Burke, Senator Whitmore is demanding it, our hands are tied."

"You can't be serious…he wasn't on this case, was he?"

Ponce smile tightened brightly. "You know he's a legend, Burke…the best."

"A legend, he was infamous, Ponce." Peter snatched at the Harvey case file, flipping it open to the paperwork at the beginning.

"Who are we talking about here?" Beyond inquisitiveness was intrigue as to why Peter was acting as if he'd been asked not to find a serial killer but to work with him.

"A crank," Peter snapped.

"He was a brilliant agent," Ponce clarified.

"Who," Neal insisted, practically leaning across the corner of Peter's desk, long legs pushing him up to read over the top of the file in Peter's hand. Peter ignored him, glaring at Ponce instead.

"You really, honestly expect me to work with Spooky Mulder?"

"Work with him," Ponce shook her head. "Hell, Peter, I need you and Caffrey to find him and convince him to do this with us. The sooner, the better."


	3. Chapter 3

_FBI New York City Field Office Headquarters_

_New York_

"What kind of name is 'Spooky' anyway?" Neal Caffrey leaned back lazily in the desk chair of the large, conference table the White Collar division used for their round table sessions. In front of him he held up the medical examiners report on Jonathan Harvey, a jumbled batch of medical jargon that made little to no sense to his limited understanding of the subject. As far as Neal could tell it all broke down to one thing…the man was dead.

"His real name isn't Spooky," Peter muttered in a distracted sort of way, thumbing through files and barely looking up at Neal's all-too-familiar flippancy. "His first name is really Fox."

"Oh, and Fox is much better." Neal frowned as he skimmed through the report, comparing them to Fox Mulder's written protest. "When Agent Ponce said his ideas were out there, she wasn't lying. Listen to this, he claimed that he believed that while the autopsy findings regarding Harvey's death might be conclusive, and that the body could be indeed Jonathan Harvey, he wasn't convinced that Harvey alone was completely responsible for the murders, nor that the murders would end because of Harvey's death."

Peter perked up at Neal's words, eyes sharpening at the file in his hand. "So old Spooky suspected that there was an accomplice back then?"

"Not exactly," Neal hedged, reading on. "He said based on the evidence found at Harvey's home, along with his own profile that he personally believed that Harvey had been possessed by someone else…someone who was the real culprit of the murders, and that this entity if you will had routinely inhabited the bodies of others to continue on their murder spree through the use of an ability that Agent Mulder termed 'psychic projection'. Basically our bad guy could throw himself into a new body again and again as he needed." Peter's amusement caused him to pause as the other man snorted and shook his head. "Is this guy for real?"

"That was pretty typical for Spooky Mulder, from what I hear that's pretty tame for one of his theories." Clinton Jones, one of the junior agents serving under Peter chuckled from his corner of the room, a broad smile across his affable, dark face. "At least it wasn't aliens or ghosts."

"I know it takes all types, but seriously, possession by a killer spirit? How did this guy end up at the FBI anyway?" He knew it took a certain sort of thinking to make it in the Bureau, someone who could make leaps of logic most others couldn't. But this was extreme, even for that. And why hadn't Neal heard of this guy before? "Ponce said he was once a legend, but what I'm reading hear sounds like it came straight out of the _Weekly World News._"

"Don't be fooled, Fox Mulder was brilliant." Peter shoved aside the file he was reviewing finally with mild irritation. "Scary brilliant, the sort of genius they still speak about in hushed tones in certain corners of the Bureau. They were talking about him before he even stepped foot into Quantico. Oxford educated, has an advanced degree in psychology, he wrote a monograph on serial killers they used to use as standard reading when I was in the Academy."

"Still do," Jones chirped up from his end of the table. "I had to study it when I went through."

"So did I," Lauren Cruz added as she stepped into the room, more files in hand. One of the few female agents in their division in New York, she was also one of the few women who consistently seemed able to ignore Neal's ready charm and bravado. And with a gun at her side, he wasn't particularly in the mood to cross her on it. "They said Mulder was the best criminal profiler to ever step through Quantico."

"Seems to be a lot of awe and wonder surrounding him, if he was such a legend, why do you all lovingly refer to him as 'Spooky'?" Neal glanced pointedly between the three suddenly guilty looking agents.

It was Peter who offered up the answer finally. "He got that nickname well before the word aliens ever left his lips. He was in VCU for years working almost exclusively with serial killers…we are talking the darkest of the dark here, the sort of guys that would give any of us nightmares. What made Mulder so good was not just that he understood them, but that he got into their heads, saw what they were thinking. He could make leaps in logic and thought on cases that would make most people's head spin, and before they figured it out, he would have the guy tracked down and the case solved. And he was never wrong, which was the really frightening part. He somehow just always…knew. It was…well…"

"Spooky?" Neal offered with a small smile.

"Hey, don't knock it, how long did it take me to track you down?"

"The first or second time?" Neal couldn't help the smart-ass grin he shot Peter's way.

"The first, and I'm no slouch at this."

"You sell yourself short, Peter, your brilliant…you caught me didn't you?" And that was a feet in and of itself, Neal thought, not without more than a hint of ego. Neal was one of the best in the art forgery business, and no one had ever been able to lay a finger on him, not local police forces, not Interpol, not even the FBI. It had first amused him that Agent Peter Burke of the FBI had even tried to find him, and then it had irritated him. But by the time Peter had finally caught up with him, and with a very clever maneuver involving some forgery work of his, Neal couldn't help but admire the intelligent, if endlessly boring FBI agent. Peter wasn't a slouch by anyone's measure.

"Caught you or not, Mulder would have had you in half the time I did, and I'm not saying that to blow up his image either. He was that good." There was more than a hint of admiration from Peter, perhaps if Neal wanted to put a name to it, a smack of envy. "Mulder was the Golden Boy of the Bureau once, he could have written his own ticket straight to a directorship if he wanted to."

"So what happened? If he was this amazingly talented guy, how did he go from Golden Boy to psychic projection?" That's the part that confused Neal. He could see hints of brilliance in Mulder's report, but not where a guy who had it all went from the pinnacle to quoting ideas he could pick off of the Internet with a Google search.

"Who knows," Peter was much less philosophical about it. "Most people assume working serial killer cases made him crack, it tends to make most profilers quit after a few years. One day he up and left Patterson's department and ensconced himself in the basement with the X-files."

"X-files…seriously, you had a department called the X-files?" This was getting better and better. Mozzie's story about the hacker publishers started to now ring eerily true for Neal, as pieces started to fall surprisingly into place.

"Unexplained cases, things that under normal FBI methods of investigation we have a difficult time explaining."

"So you mean like 'psychic projection'?"

"Unexplained phenomenon." Peter reiterated in mild irritation.

"Psychic projection, aliens, monsters, you name it." As was Jones' forte, he clarified where Peter tended to gloss over details he considered inconsequential. "I heard he got into it because he thought the government was hiding the truth about aliens and Area 51."

"Oh please tell me that's real," Neal gleefully turned to Peter, meeting the older agents disgruntled smirk.

"That's not what I heard," Lauren interjected, rolling her eyes at her partner. "I heard he got into it because of his sister. She was taken when he was a kid, and he was trying to find out what happened to her."

"By looking in files filled with aliens and psychic monsters?" Jones snorted derisively. "I think he was just had enough and decided that aliens were easier than chasing after psycho whack jobs with a desire to kill."

"No matter why he took up the X-files," Peter interjected himself between the snippy comments with the sort of paternalistic air that told them both to lay off. "We still have to figure out how to get a hold of him."

"HR doesn't have a record of where he got to?" This seemed the most obvious answer for Neal, but then he was learning that nothing about this Fox Mulder seemed to be obvious.

The glare from Peter told him of course he already considered this most basic of steps. "Fox Mulder didn't exactly leave the Bureau on good terms, and conveniently no one seems to know where he went or why he left. Frankly I heard at one point he'd died. But then someone else said the FBI was conducting an investigation on his whereabouts. Whatever the case, his personnel file has been sealed, and what little they gave me was redacted." Peter glanced towards the other two agents. "Any luck on your ends?"

"I thought I had a beat on him, actually," Lauren spoke up. " Someone I know down in DC said that he was called in last year to help work a case on a missing agent and some psychic priest. Turns out he was the one who found the guys responsible. The agent in charge of the case died, but I spoke to her partner, Agent Drummy, to see how he found Fox Mulder."

"Well that was convenient, someone's done the work for us."

"Not necessarily," Lauren smiled apologetically at Peter's premature enthusiasm. "Drummy promptly referred me to Mulder's form AD, Walter Skinner down in DC. I called his secretary who then told me in polite but no uncertain terms that Assistant Director Skinner does not comment on the whereabouts of his former agents."

"Did you tell her that this is a highly sensitive Bureau mater and comes straight from the Director himself?" In Peter's mind, obviously, if it came from on high that should override the hesitance of one lone office worker.

"That I did, and she promptly told me that when I got a handwritten order from the Director then the AD would consider sharing the information, and not before."

"Bureaucracy in the FBI at its finest," Neal murmured cheerfully, returning to the files he was perusing. "If they want us to find him, why all this secrecy to try and hide him?"

"Mulder made a lot of enemies when he was down in the basement. Chances are his old boss wants to make sure they don't find him."

"Well if they leave it up to the FBI to find him, they never will," Neal snorted, glancing through the ME report again, trying to find his place, a name catching his eye at the bottom of the page. It was the signature for the person who had actually performed the autopsy. He'd seen it before, later in the report. Flipping towards the back of Mulder's own report he saw the name appear again.

"Did Mulder have a partner when he worked the X-files?" It seemed to make sense. In the FBI everyone had partners. Who knew agents better than their partners? It felt like Peter knew Neal better than he knew himself sometimes…it didn't help that Peter had been the lead investigator who caught him while he was still a wanted criminal. While Mulder was apparently gifted in knowing the minds of other people, there had to be one person who knew Mulder implicitly, someone who he trusted beyond all measure.

"I believe so," Peter murmured thoughtfully. "Why?"

"Could she be it?" He passed over the files, pointing out the name at the bottom. "Dana Scully, she signed here at the bottom of Mulder's report, but she's also the one who signed off as the medical examiner as well."

"That's right! I forgot she worked with him."

"You knew her?" It seemed like a big detail for Peter for forget.

"Yeah, she was my forensics teacher when I went through Quantico, she was a pathologist." A strange, far away, sappy looked crossed his face. "God, so many of us had crushes on her."

"A pathologists…they cut up dead bodies right?" Somehow there was nothing sexy about that in Neal's mind.

"Yeah," Peter grinned sloppily. "You should have seen her. Tiny bit of a woman couldn't have been more than 5'3, bright red hair, stunningly pretty. She would come into the classroom, all no nonsense; you thought she'd take a shot at you before she take any crap from you about being a woman. And she'd haul off right to work; she'd be up to her elbows in guts in five minutes. It was stunning."

"Sounds…delightful," Neal wrinkled his nose in mild disgust. "I never knew that death was a kink of yours. Elizabeth know about your crush on the death doctor there?" If his wife didn't, Neal thought impishly, he could arrange for that to change rather quickly.

"It was before I ever met Elle," Peter's eyes narrowed warningly at Neal's all-too-innocent expression. "Besides, I wasn't the only one in my class who had a thing for her. She was devastatingly intelligent. That was why we were all in love with her. And that's why we were all a little surprised she took up again with Spooky Mulder. Scully was about as far away from him on the logic board as was possible to be."

"I can tell from the report," Neal frowned thoughtfully. "Was she assigned to work with him? Maybe she didn't choose to be stuck with an alien chasing, ex-criminal profiler."

"From what I understand she worked with him till he left the Bureau. She left not long after."

"Would she know where he is at?" A slow, knowing smile began to spread on Neal's face as the same idea began to occur to Peter.

"She just might." He turned to Lauren, who was already up and making for the door. "We may not be able to find much of Fox Mulder, but try Dana Scully. Find out where she's at and see if we can reach her about where former partner got to."

"I'm on it, boss." Lauren smiled assuredly.

"Not a half bad idea, Caffrey," Peter muttered grudgingly, turning back to the stack of files on Jonathan Harvey and the original case.

"You know, I do get those from time to time." Neal lounged back comfortably in his seat with a self-satisfied grin.


	4. Chapter 4

_FBI New York City Field Office Headquarters_

_New York_

"How much do you love me, boss?" Lauren Cruz's brilliant smile lit up her light, olive complexion as she beamed with glowing, personal satisfaction. Neal glanced at the file in her hand, a seeming end to four hours of personal headache clearly in sight.

"Hopefully you found Dana Scully's whereabouts," Peter held out his hand for the file as Lauren's smile broadened with more than a bit of self-accomplishment.

"I did indeed. Dr. Dana Katherine Scully is one of the resident neurologists at Our Lady of Sorrows Hospital in Richmond. It's a Catholic institution, works primarily with the poor and hard luck cases. She's been there for the last five years."

"Than why in the hell was she so hard to find," Peter grumbled as Neal rolled his chair alongside to glance at the file over Peter's shoulder. He earned a dark glare from the agent for it, but was too impatient to wait his turn.

"Dr. Scully left the FBI under suspicious circumstances herself in 2002, though no one was willing to cough up the reason why. All I got was that she was not accused of any particular wrong doing, and that she and the FBI parted ways amicably." Something about Lauren's raised eyebrows and doubtful tone said she didn't believe everything was as pleasant and cheerful as she was being led to believe. "I got a whole list of wonderful, glowing praise on her, so much I wondered if I should get a clothes pin and start shovel that pile."

"Makes you wonder why the FBI is willing to heap praise on her head, but acts as if Fox Mulder had leprosy." Neal leaned back in his chair thoughtfully. Something about all of this didn't add up. The FBI was begging to get back an agent they hated so much they hid every trace of his existence from even their own fellow agents. And yet his former partner, who worked the very same cases as he did, got glowing reviews. Why?

"Someone was trying to appease somebody, but I'm not about to start pissing off OPR and trying to ask why." Peter clearly had the same reservations but less of an interest in pursuing them. "So have you called down the hospital to speak to her?"

Here Lauren's please delight faded slightly, her bottom lip catching behind her teeth. "First thing when I got the information."

"And?" Peter already sounded as if he wasn't going to like this.

"Dr. Scully is out of town at a medical conference this week."

"Son-of-a…." Lauren cringed slightly under Peter's mild oath, eyeing the pen he flicked across his desk with worry.

"Did they say where she was," he barked in frustration.

"No," she sighed, the shine wearing quickly off of her big break.

"And did you tell them you were Agent Cruz with the FBI?"

"Of course," Lauren wasn't so cowed by her boss's irritation to not snap back at him for thinking she would forget the obvious. "But the switchboard was manned by nuns."

"Nuns?" Peter blinked blankly at Lauren's excuse, glancing between her knowing look and the low, understanding whistle emanating from Neal, who shook his head and slouched into his chair.

"What about nuns?" Peter specified his question now, clearly not getting whatever secret sympathy passed between his consultant and his junior agent.

"You never went to Catholic school, eh Peter?" Neal winced in commiseration with Lauren at the long ago memories.

"My family when they bothered to be religious were Methodists, am I missing something? Do nuns eat children? Keep torture chambers in the basement?"

"I thought Sister Mary Alice did," Lauren breathed, eyes wide in remembered childhood fear. "They used to say if she looked at you while talking in class it was like God himself was watching each and every one of your sins."

"Why do you think I got into art forgery," Neal laced his long fingers behind his head. "All the hours Sister Margaret, my fifth grade teacher made me sit and stare at a picture of the Virgin while repeating the Hail Mary a hundred times for penance. You got to know the Virgin real well by then."

"Somehow I'm not surprised," Peter's glared sideways at Neal's unabashed grin, frowning up at his agent. "So let me guess, the iron maidens didn't fork over the information on where to find Dr. Scully?"

"They were more than willing to direct me to her boss, a Father Ybarra, but warned he wouldn't be any more forthcoming than they were. Short of a warrant, they weren't planning on giving it up."

"Figures," Peter sighed, scrubbing at his face briefly, rising from his desk. "All right, it looks like the good doctor is a dead end, perhaps we'll see if we can't do a little political leaning on Assistant Director Skinner. I think maybe Hughes has some leverage, maybe he can speak to him."

"You sure we have to give up the Scully angle," Cruz's shoulder's slumped in disappointment. Neal couldn't blame her, she had pulled out the only small victory they had in an afternoon full of dead ends.

Peter slipped his coat from the back of his chair, shaking his head. "You prepared to track down every possible medical conference that she could be at?"

Medical conference! The words penetrated into Neal's brain, clicking finally as he nearly kicked himself for being so slow on the uptake today. "She doesn't have to."

"She doesn't have to what?" Peter paused, one arm stuck partially in its sleeve, hope rekindling briefly under the layers of frustration.

"What do you mean?"

"Elizabeth," Neal straightened with excitement, a break finally opening to them they didn't have before.

Clearly Peter was missing the pieces that Neal was seeing. "My wife? What about her?"

"Elle is working a medical conference…a neurological medical conference." A grin crept across Neal's face, meeting a matching one on Lauren's. "How much you want to bet our illustrious Dr. Scully is at that event?"

"And how likely is it that there is another event in the country hosting specifically neurologists." Lauren supplied, clearly pleased that all of her work might pay off after all.

Neal was already running with the idea, their problem seemingly solved. "All we would have to do is get a hold of Elle, see if she can check with the hotel…"

"No." Like a disapproving father, Peter's negative rang sharply to cut off Neal before he even got started.

"No," Neal stared up at the senior agent wonderingly. "Peter it's a lead, you can't just ignore…"

"I don't need my wife to do investigative work for me."

"It's not investigative work, it's simple information gathering, Peter. We use informants to do that for us all the time."

"Elizabeth is at that conference for business, her business, and it took her a damn long time to get that bid. I've worked hard to make it so my job doesn't effect everything she's worked for, hell knows Garrett Fowler's made that job a hell of a lot harder for me." Peter did have a point, Fowler had so far stopped at nothing to make Peter's home life with Elizabeth more difficult in his effort to force both Peter and Neal's hands. "I don't want Elizabeth involved any more than is necessary, and this isn't necessary."

"This case comes straight from the Director, Peter….Senator Whitmore…." Neal grasped frantically at anything he thought could sway his handler. Not that Peter lacked a point, Neal preferred to keep Elizabeth out of their work as much as possible, but in this, when she had access…

"And what is she supposed to say to the hotel management? Excuse me, give me a list of your guests, my husband is with the FBI and is looking for one of them? No!" Peter shoved his remaining arm into his jacket, snatching up the file on his desk. "No Elizabeth, Neal, I don't care if she can drag Dr. Scully down here for us. I want her out of this…clear?"

Neal met Peter's firm glare for a moment, contemplating argument, but sliding instead. As a con artist he had learned long ago that sometimes it was better to bend rather than hold fast, and wait for a different opportunity to present itself. Besides, the different opportunity had already presented itself. He smiled quietly as Peter stormed out of his office and next door to the office of the department head, Reese Hughes.

Lauren watched Peter go before cutting suspicious eyes at Neal's far to pleased look. "You heard the man, if he finds out you talked to Elle…."

"He said not to talk to Elizabeth, I'm not going to." Neal reached for his cell phone, flipping it open and dialing without looking. "How often do I break a promise to Peter?"

"You mean in the last week or so?" Lauren's disapproving look turned to wry amusement. Neal ignored her as he slipped the phone to his ear and waited for the pick up. It didn't take long, soft, piano music filtered across the loudspeaker, broken by Mozzie's unctuous tones.

"Did you know that you can pair caviar to different wines to bring out the subtle hints of flavor that help you tell the difference not only in where the grapes were grown, but when, and in what soil?"

"How much of that wine have you been drinking?" Neal bit back a smirk at Lauren's curiosity.

"I'm having a good time, Caffery, what dregs do you need me to muck out now?" Obviously Mozzie had been drinking, it was rare he was ever this surly with Neal about anything.

"You still at the hotel helping Elle?"

"Who do you think the angel is that set me up with this fine spread?"

Neal wondered if he should warn Peter that Moz was in love with his wife.

"Look, I need a favor out of you. You think you can get your hands on the hotel guest list for this conference?"

"Piece of cake," Moz murmured around a mouthful of something, Neal surmised the afore-mentioned caviar. "Besides, I think the woman at the front desk likes me."

"Drink enough of that stuff, Moz, you might be able to get her out on a date." Neal grinned. "I'm looking for a specific guest at the conference…a Dana Scully."

"Scully…like the baseball announcer."

"I guess," Neal knew nothing about any sport. "For the Yankees?"

"Dodgers, Caffrey, my old man was a Dodger fan from way back when they were still in Brooklyn. Before they picked up stakes and moved to Los Angeles."

"That's nice, Moz, see if you can find out if she's there and give me a call. " Neal shot Lauren a thumb's up signal, earning a pleased smile as the younger agent waved her thanks and moved out of Peter's office. Neal waited till she was well away from the door before putting in his next request. "And when you get a chance, I need you to go back into the FBI files for me."

"Back again, what am I, your personal hack monkey?"

"You were just in there digging up Fowler's files, you can slip in again." Nothing like stroking Mozzie's ego to get him to comply.

"Who is it this time, another OPR crony of Fowler's?"

"No, same person, Dana Scully. She's ex-FBI, I want the records on her and her old partner, Fox Mulder. He's who we are really after, but we can't get to him without getting to her first. And this whole thing smells funny, Moz, and I want to know why."

"Couldn't you just look it up in their service records?"

"Would I be asking you for this if I could." The wine was making Moz irritable. "Look, this is a big case, it could reflect on Peter and the fact that he got me out of prison to work here. I need for us to look as good as possible so the Justice Department doesn't spontaneously decide to rescinded my ankle wear and send me back to prison."

Moz was silent for several moments before heaving a long-suffering sigh. "The things I do for you, Neal."

"You're better than my own mother," Neal smiled winningly, despite the fact Moz couldn't see it. Moz could probably hear it all the same.

"So Dana Scully and…Fox Mulder?"

"That's the one."

"Who in the hell names their kid Fox," Moz muttered, as if writing down the names. "OK, the files will take me a couple of days, but the rest I can get for you tonight."

"You're an angel, Moz."

"Will you buy me wine and caviar too?"

"Maybe if I started charging higher consulting fees. See you tonight." He clicked off, grinning to himself. He'd followed the letter of Peter's demand, if not the spirit. Hopefully Peter wouldn't get too irritated by the details.


	5. Chapter 5

Neal hardly had to ask who it was at the door.

"Neal," June's gracious smile brightened as she spotted him sitting at the small table in the single large apartment he inhabited at the top of June's elegant, Gilded Age mansion. Immaculately dressed, June was the picture of the wealthy, African-American matriarch, beautiful, articulate, and kind hearted. Neal's landlady never explained fully where she got the wealth that kept her house and provided for her family, nor how she kept her deceased husband Byron out of the many scrapes with the law he got into. But from her stories of her glory days with her much beloved husband and the Rat Pack he ran with clued Neal at least into some of it. June was in many ways the sort of motherly figure that kept Neal grounded, especially when his status as an ex-con could shut so many doors in his face. Even when Peter doubted, June usually never did. No wonder Byron, God rest his soul, loved her so.

"Hey June, Moz here?" He glanced behind her spotting Mozzi's balding head as he tried to slide past, case and files in hand. June eyed the entire mass curiously, but knew better than to ask too many questions as to what Neal was up to. He preferred it that way, the last person in the world he wanted hurt after Elizabeth Burke was June. She had done too much for him to ever put her in that position.

"You boys need anything from downstairs? I can bring up some sandwiches?" She eyed Moz in particular. The two had bonded over many a game of wits waiting for Neal. He suspected his friend liked the coddling from the motherly June.

"No, we're good, thanks June." Neal grabbed the stacks of Fowler files from Moz, setting them on the table as June stepped out. "Find out anything on this Dr. Scully?"

"She's there all right, more than that, she's a presenter." Moz reached into his briefcase and pulled out a glossy program for the convention, filled with all sorts of medical jargon that made Neal's head spin. "I asked around about her, she's apparently new on the neurology scene but already respected. Had an out of the box approach to something called Sandhoff's Disease, something involving the use of stem cells to try aid in the repair of damaged tissue in the brain?" Moz shrugged, as confused by the medical jargon as Neal was. "That's her, third one down on the list."

"So that's Dr. Scully." The black and white photo matted her somewhat, but Neal could almost see why it was Peter had a crush on the woman years ago. She appeared to be in her forties, still strikingly lovely and charming, unless you noticed the expression in her unwavering gaze. Something about it struck Neal, a certain wariness tempered by strength of character that both invited you to challenge her but warned you against getting too close. Habit from having worked at the FBI, he wondered? He still didn't know what happened to her. Lauren said she left under suspicious circumstances, but everyone fell all over themselves to praise her. Her former partner disappeared without a trace. Just what was going on here?

"So you say she was once a Fibbie?" Moz meandered to Neal's lone sofa, flopping onto its cushions tiredly, a well-worn newspaper in hand.

"Yeah," Neal studied the photo again. "Used to work as a pathologist for the Bureau."

"Her….she looks too pretty to cut up dead bodies."

"That's what Peter said," Neal smiled briefly. "He had a crush on her when he was in Quantico."

"Does Elizabeth know?" Moz leered happily, the possibility of gossip too good to pass up.

"Nope, but I have a feeling between one of us, she will soon." Neal had a feeling Peter would probably confess it to her before either he or Moz got a chance. "Strange she went into neurology after that. Seems like a big leap in career choices."

"Maybe she got tired of cutting up dead bodies and wanted to help live ones for a change." Moz shrugged, opening his paper, flipping through it idyll.

"Maybe." Neal had read through her autopsy report on Jonathan Harvey. It was well written, clear, concise, to the point, and made much more sense than her partner's theories on "psychic projection", whatever that was.

"Tell me, Moz, what would make a perfectly skilled, talented, highly intelligent pathologist team up with a guy who ran around claiming that serial killers could throw their souls into other bodies?"

"Is that what this is all about?"

"Well, that's what Fox Mulder is all about, and that's who we need," Neal shrugged, settling on the couch beside his friend. "They called him Spooky today, but they couldn't seem to decide if he was insane or brilliant. Clearly he was brilliant on some level, judging from the level of work he did, but 'psychic projection'?"

"Sounds like something they would write about." Moz waved the paper in Neal's face, and it was then that he noticed how old and faded it was starting to look. Emblazoned on the front page were the words "Lone Gunmen", just above a picture of a giant, fuzzy shape that they claimed was some sort of Bigfoot sighting.

"Where did you get that?"

"Our discussion this morning got me longing for a good read through, I still have Aunt Mildred's old stash in a box in my closet."

"You kept those things?" Neal scanned through the dubious looking article, filled with references to dubiously reputable experts and random camper sightings. It sounded about as plausible as any rag he could grab from the rack at the grocery store.

"Well I figured they would be collectable someday, sort of like TV Guides." Moz carefully folded the paper up, passing it to Neal. "You can give it a read through if you like."

"Thanks." He wasn't so sure he felt as grateful as that word sounded.

"Hey, it might help. Sounds like this Mulder you guys are looking for was cut out of the same cloth as those guys."

"Maybe," Neal frowned down at the header, thoughtfully as he considered the story he had gotten that morning on this Mulder. "You said these guys had an inside man in the FBI."

"Rumor says that they did. Why…you think it was him?"

"Well, it makes sense, doesn't it? Guy in the FBI, looking for aliens and the paranormal, its right up the alley of these guys writing about the same thing."

"So why does the FBI want him back so bad, especially if they took such pains to hide him?"

That was the question Neal had been asking himself all day. "Talk like this would be embarrassing to the FBI, wouldn't you think? Think about it, wouldn't you want to hide the existence of a man carrying on about aliens and ghosts if you got the chance?"

"I'm surprised they let him get away with it for as long as he did." Moz had little faith in the FBI, as any good con man with half-a-brain would.

"I think that was the rub. Mulder was too good at what he did. Peter said he was a brilliant criminal profiler, could get into the heads of anyone. That was a commodity to precious to turn their noses up at. But they had to keep him happy. Give him the X-files, let him chase after aliens, keep the smart, brilliant doctor at his side to reign him in and keep him from going too crazy, and everyone is happy."

"All right, so that explains why they kept a crackpot about the place, and why the doctor was working with him. Now why is it they want him back? And why did they hide him in the first place?'

"Hiding….I don't know." That part was the piece of the puzzle that didn't make sense. "Perhaps he found something so embarrassing they wanted to keep him as far away from the Bureau as possible. Except that now they are in a jam. They are stuck with a case he worked on years ago that they muffed up. And now there are Senators involved, powerful people, and they need him back because he's the only person crazy enough to be able to figure it out."

It made sense, now with all the pieces together. Still even Moz hit on the one most obvious detail. "Why are you and Peter on this detail again? You guys don't deal with murder."

"That part I don't know." Neal murmured, eyes roving along the front page of the Gunmen's newspaper. "Something to do with Fowler maybe? Or Peter?"

"Maybe you?" One of Mozzie's dark eyebrows quirked up towards his baldhead, "face it, Neal, you are one expensive enigma for the FBI. Maybe they want to see if you are a one trick pony, Peter Burke's personal pet con."

Neal tried hard not to bristle at the image. "Maybe." Why did this have the feeling of Fowler's hand stuck in it somewhere?


	6. Chapter 6

_Marriot Hotel_

_Times Square_

_New York_

"I told you not to involve Elle," Peter ground out low under his breath, clearly not pleased with Neal's evasive maneuvers, but knowing he was between a rock and a hard place as well.

"You said not to involve Elizabeth," Neal reminded him airily as he strolled alongside the agents more determined steps. "You didn't say not to use those who were working with her."

"Semantics, Caffrey, you could have gotten her in a lot of trouble."

"But I didn't," Neal replied, unconcerned, knowing Peter's temper would subside soon enough when they got the information they needed. "Face it, Peter, all it took was a bit of creative thinking."

"You did this on purpose to annoy me." Peter nodded briefly towards the doorman at the Marriot's entranceway perfunctorily, striding inside as if his irritation was driving him.

"Because everything I do in life is designed to annoy you." Neal shrugged, used to Peter's surliness, especially first thing in the morning. "The breakfast lounge is to your right, I have it on good authority Dr. Scully can be found in there."

Peter nearly growled audibly at him as he tracked the direction Neal pointed. He reluctantly moving towards the sound of low voices over soft, light music. Neal would have to see about getting Peter coffee, soon, before he managed to bite off someone's head…likely Neal's.

The lounge was a smallish area, filled with quiet, round tables and hushed, attentive waiters, bringing coffee and eggs to bleary eyed patrons who mostly hid behind copies of the _New York Times_, sipping at fresh squeezed orange juice. Only a few of the clusters of people spoke, mostly in low murmurs so as not to disturb their fellows still waking up from the jet lag many of them suffered from. Neal stood in the doorway beside Peter, scanning the room carefully, looking for their target across the low set tables.

"Over there," Peter nodded, indicating a small knot of people at the far side, several of whom had their backs turned to the doorway where they stood. Neal couldn't see the face from the matte, black and white photograph he remembered, but Peter hardly seemed to find this a problem, bee lining to the table quietly, coming behind a woman with long, coppery red hair, drinking deeply from a cup of coffee as she listened to someone speaking at the end of the table.

"Excuse me," Peter cut in as politely as he could manage with the scent of roasted caffeine wafting through the air. "I'm sorry to interrupt, I'm here to speak to Dr. Dana Scully?"

The red head turned slowly at Peter's words, eyes turning automatically up to his tall height. Neal blinked, seeing the woman in color for the first time. Her black and white photo had done her no justice, in color she was more brilliant. Her eyes were as bright a blue as his, pale skinned porcelain doll. A doll, Neal reminded himself, that could cut up a dead body like a chicken…Peter's words, not his. It finally struck him what Peter meant, this woman had once been an FBI agent, had carried a gun, had seen death and gore in its most raw form. And she sat in the chair looking so small a stiff wind could knock her down.

Something about the woman's frank gaze made him think carefully about ever suggesting that idea to her. She might just shoot him where he stood without even batting an eyelash. Dr. Scully glanced carefully, first from Peter, then to Neal, who she watched for long moments, then to Peter again, her expression inscrutable as she stood.

And she was short too….Neal bit back the comment that wanted to slip through his lips. He was well versed in how to turn a phrase and flip on the charm for the ladies, and he knew instinctually that pointing out loud that this woman hardly looked like FBI material would get them no where. Perhaps she wasn't as tall or capable looking as Cruz or some of the others women he'd had to work with. Something told him he would not like it much if she were the one taking him down. He glanced at Peter briefly, almost snorting out loud at the sight. The agent looked as though he had just swallowed his own tongue.

"If you all will excuse me?" Dr. Scully apologized to her fellows, her tone low, warm, and apologetic, a soft, soothing contralto as she turned back to the two men, eyes glancing out of the door of the breakfast room. "I believe there is a sitting area outside, if you two gentlemen would like to step out there?"

Something about the coolness that crept into the woman's tone as she faced them both hinted that she knew exactly who they were…or at least who Peter was. It was hard to hide an FBI agent really, especially from another FBI agent. And something told Neal she knew exactly what they were here about. And the flash of steel in her eyes meant that she wasn't going to give it to them easily. What was with this Fox Mulder, he mused as he followed the petite woman out of the door. What was it about this man that garnered such absolute silence on his existence?

The soft, comfortable couches in the Marriott's lobby were quiet enough first thing in the morning, and the doctor found the grouping furthest away from the front desk, affording them privacy. Without preamble she sat and watched as Neal and Peter followed suit, charging first into the reason why it was they had approached her over breakfast.

"What does the FBI want this time, Agent..."

"Burke," Peter paused, surprised as he met her dry smile, dark auburn eyebrows arching knowingly at him. "Peter Burke, this is my associate, Neal Caffrey."

"Associate?" Her sharp eyes gave Neal another once over as she nodded ever so imperceptibly. The word seemed to confirm something for her, as did the once over. It was appreciative, not like Neal was usually used to from the average female, but rather it was informative, almost calculated. Perhaps you could take the doctor out of the FBI, Neal mused, but you couldn't take the FBI out of the doctor. He'd seen Peter do the same thing any number of times.

That was, when he wasn't stuttering over his own tongue talking to a woman...

"I don't know if you remember me, Dr. Scully." Was that a flush on Peter's cheeks? "I remember you though, from Quantico. Back in '94, I was one of the cadets going through the Academy then, I took you for my basic pathology course."

Was Peter Burke seriously babbling over his ex-Academy teacher? Neal would give anything at that moment for a video camera to record this. Hell, even Elle snickered at the idea of Peter flirting with anyone, let alone tripping all over himself. Though, Peter had to admit, Dr. Scully certainly was a woman he could see himself tripping all over for.

"Really," Dr. Scully frowned briefly, as if trying to remember his face. "In my beginner class?"

"Yeah, I was one of the only ones that didn't get sick when you took the sheet off the body to start with. Elderly white female, found at a crime scene." He grinned sheepishly before turning a strange shade of scarlet. "I did lose it though when you started the cranial cut to open the skull. But I was the last man standing." Peter sounded positively triumphant at the feet.

"The cranial cut is usually what gets most people in the end," she acknowledged with something of a small smile. "I'm assuming you did well in the class?"

"I hope so….you…err, disappeared before my group finished its rotation." She frowned in puzzlement briefly as for a moment something painful flashed in the doctor's eyes, before it was ruthlessly quashed and calm reasserted itself. There was a story there, Neal realized, one that she didn't like to discuss. She hid it well, and Neal surmised she hid a lot of things. This was a woman who didn't like being thought of as weak. And who could blame her, even his first react had been to question if this woman had ever been an FBI agent at all, based solely on her physical appearance. How often had she heard that same refrain from men in the Academy when she entered years ago? No matter what her physical appearance was, Dana Scully was a tough woman. And something about that quickly hidden look told Neal she had a strength that went beyond the simple physical.

"As much as reminiscing about old times is intriguing, Agent Burke, I am here at a medical conference. I don't work for the FBI any longer. What can I help you with?"

Peter swallowed the crimson flush as her words pointedly cut to the chase. "We need to ask you for a favor Dr. Scully. We need your help looking for an old co-worker of yours."

"Fox Mulder?" She cut across Peter's dancing around the obvious, mouth pursing briefly as she regarded the pair's surprise. Amusement seemed to war with irritation as she leaned back briefly, crossing her shapely legs under her pencil skirt, and arms across her well cut blouse. She hardly seemed surprised that this was the point of their visit.

"Err, yes…" Peter paused, slightly put off guard by her directness. "Your former partner, we need to contact him."

"If you wanted to contact Fox Mulder, you could. He's at the same place he was the last time the FBI wanted to contact him." Clearly she wasn't amused by acting as the go between, especially as apparently this wasn't the first time the FBI had asked her to be such.

"Right, we tried speaking to Agent Drummy about his whereabouts, but he seemed reluctant to tell us."

A hard smile flickered to live on Dr. Scully's face. "No, I would assume he would be."

Another story there. Neal watched her, fascinated, wondering what in the hell was going on here? Curiosity was one of his worst traits, but the one that always made his life the most interesting, and he could nearly taste the subtexts of things going on here that not even Peter knew about or understood. What was up with these two former agents, what was the big mystery?

"We approached your former boss, Assistant Director Skinner, but he seemed equally as reticent. The problem is, Dr. Scully, there is a serial killer on the loose, powerful families are involved and are laying pressure on the Bureau, and the last person to work this case was your former partner. We need him in on this."

"I no longer work with Fox Mulder," she replied glibly, a line that struck Neal as both natural and rehearsed. Obviously it was true, she didn't work with him. But she clearly knew exactly where he was. However she, like everyone else, was loath giving it up.

"I know you don't work together, but you talk to him, obviously, how did they get a hold of him for Agent Whitney's case?" Peter's patience was wearing thin, his barely even temper fraying slightly at the edges. "Women are dying out there, Dr. Scully."

For a moment compassion filled her cool gaze. "Someone is always dying, Agent Burke," she replied softly, and not without a great deal of understanding. "Believe me, I worked for enough years at the Bureau to see it more than I even care to remember. But it isn't what Fox Mulder does anymore. And it's not what I do anymore. If you really need to find Mulder so badly, you'll have to go through other channels. Perhaps he will listen to you more directly." She rose with that cryptic statement, an apologetic but distant smile on her lips. "I have a presentation I need to prepare for, if you gentlemen will excuse me."

She hardly waited for a murmured acknowledgement from either of them before she was out of the area and moving across the lobby, back to the breakfast room. Neal watched her go, not without a little appreciation as he turned back to Peter's irritated thoughtfulness.

"I don't get it," he muttered, eyes never leaving the former agent, her head held high. "What is it that he did that they are all so busy protecting him from?"

"I don't know," Neal admitted, though a part of him was dying to find out. "But she's not just worried about him….she's worried about herself as well."

"What do you mean?" Peter's eyes glittered as picked up on Neal's words, rolling over the conversation in his head.

"Notice she not only said it wasn't what he did anymore, it isn't what she did anymore either." Neal recalled the awkward turn of phrase. They weren't asking for her assistance on the case, only his.

"She thinks if we bring him on, we'll want her too."

"Did she help with the previous case he was brought in on?"

Peter paused, thinking. "Periphery only. I got the impression he brought her along." He glanced back, blinking thoughtfully. "You know, there were rumors about the two of them….beyond partners. I don't know if I believe it. There are always rumors in the FBI. She didn't leave with him when he did."

"But that's not to say that they aren't still close on some level." Neal watched the door of the breakfast room thoughtfully. "Perhaps she's protective of him because of that closeness….or perhaps she is afraid he'll drag her into this again. She didn't say we couldn't bring him in, only that she wouldn't help."

"Maybe," Peter rose, watching the doors. "She doesn't seem to want to talk to the FBI about it though. Clearly whatever caused her to leave, it wasn't as amicable as the Bureau is making it out to be. I won't be able to get anything out of her." He turned to glance down at Neal, eyes glittering with knowing humor.

"What?" Neal blinked up at him, not liking the look in Peter's eye.

"A charming young man, handsome, intelligent, with a silvery tongue? Agent Ponce was right, you could charm the underwear off a nun."

"I didn't have any luck with Sister Margaret," he snorted.

"No, but I'm guessing with a name like Scully, she's Irish, your Irish, you connect on a cultural, Catholic-schoolchild-horror story sort of level."

"Horror story?"

"She worked the X-files, I'm sure there is nothing creepy from your Sister Margaret she hasn't heard or seen before." Peter was already heading cheerfully to the door.

"Peter…you can't…I can't just seduce her to give me this guys whereabouts."

"I didn't say seduce her, Peter, somehow I don't think you'd get very far there," Peter paused, glancing his partner up and down. "Though she would probably be one of the few women who didn't enjoy you trying to smile your way into their good graces."

"Clearly you've forgotten Kate," Neal pointed out coldly, eyes flashing briefly. A flirt he might be, but there was a woman out there he loved, one he was desperately trying to find without going back to prison for it.

"All right. All we need is to get her to trust us, to believe we don't mean her or Mulder harm. If we can do that, perhaps she can talk him into helping us out."

"And what if she still says no?" Neal highly doubted this plan would work as effectively as Peter seemed to believe it would.

"Then….we'll worry about it when she says no."

"Peter," Neal snapped as the agent moved through the door breezily, abandoning him in the hotel lobby. Damn it. Neal glared at his friend's retreating back, his trench coat snapping in the breeze behind him. Was Spooky Mulder really worth all of this?


	7. Chapter 7

_Marriot Hotel_

_Times Square_

_New York_

"Dr. Scully," the drawl drew out the woman's last name impossibly long, slightly rousing Neal from his doze as he glanced over to the corpulent skeptic sitting in the front row. He was a doctor from Atlanta, as best Neal could tell form the accent, and was so big it was a wonder he worked as a doctor at all seeing how unhealthy he was, let alone as a neurologist. And he'd been hitting point after point of Dr. Scully's presentation on her work with Sandhoff Disease for the last half–an-hour. For his part even Neal understood the process better than this man did, and he hardly understood medicine at all. Still, Dr. Scully's equanimity hardly fluttered as she took the man's questions, answering them directly and without so much as a quiver, as if she was well used to being challenged by a board of her peers.

"I realize the use of stem cell is still experimental at best, Dr. Lenhoff, but given the patience overall health and the fact that standard methods of treatment were starting to fail him, it was a risk I was willing to take. As it turned out it was a good risk, the stem cells have regenerated those parts of his brain that were being most damaged by the disease. While there is no guarantee that this is even a permanent cure or 'fix', it at least has stemmed the ravages of the disease for the moment. I don't know if it will ever allowed Christian Fearon to recover the motor skills he's lost, but it will at least prolong his life and prevent him from further degenerating for the time being."

"Would you suggest this sort of risky treatment for all such cases, Dr. Scully. After all, this is a rather dangerous and new territory we are wading into, and we lack the evidence to really support this as a widespread treatment." Lenhoff continued in a bored sort of drawl, as Neal contemplated what it would take to perhaps fake a fire alarm to get the out of this room. He doubted the man would ever shut up.

"Christian's case was unique in that we had only a small window of time between the failure of conventional treatment and the steady worsening of his condition. If given more time, more capability, perhaps I would have turned to more testing and evidence. But as we sometimes know in this business, as much as we would like to have hard proof and steady science on our side, sometimes action is the only course we can take. We just have to believe that in the end our cause is true and our decision is the right one. We have to have faith that in the end we worked in the best interest of our patient."

Her words rang with a certain conviction that struck Neal, and clearly struck the other doctor as well. Lenhoff demurred visibly, nodding as he took his seat. The room shifted and murmured as the doctors began to see the end in sight, eagerly seeking escape. Neal took the time to rise, folding up the copy of the Lone Gunmen's paper Mozzie had left with him, slipping out of the back of the room, unnoticed. He quietly made his way out before the press of the crowd, finding a quiet nook in the hallway near the meeting room, watching for Dr. Scully's bright head to come out of the door.

The room quickly expelled its occupants, as doctors made their way out of the doors, chatting amongst each other as they made their way down the hallway towards the banks of elevators and the hotel restaurants, eager to be up and stretching their legs. Neal didn't expect the Dr. Scully to be out with the first press. He waited patiently as the last stragglers made their way out, discussing various points of the presentation, before Dr. Lenhoff, and Dr. Scully made their way out of the door at the very tail end of the group. Lenhoff waddled beside the petite doctor, almost as if she were caught in the gravitational field of his own pompousness. His slow, syrupy, nasal voice fell all over himself as he attempted to apologize.

"It's not that I doubt your work, Dr. Scully, but stem cells are such a new, raw field. And what you did was quiet dangerous for the boy. There is no guarantee it will improve his lot in life. Perhaps it would have been better to let him go."

Her spine stiffened so hard, Neal almost thought it was made of titanium. Her tone was pleasant in its answer, but he could hear ice lacing each of her words. "Perhaps there are some who believe that it isn't worth raising the hopes of families in order to prolong the life of one child, doomed to die. But I took an oath coming out of medical school, the same one you took, that stated I would not take life. And frankly allowing that boy to die without trying my damndest to save him is tantamount to that very thing."

Lenhoff demurred again, but didn't seem to back down. "I know your faith, Dr. Scully, precludes those sorts of ideas, but if the boy isn't going to ever be better?"

"He will still lived happy and loved, and will live just as much under the sight of God as any healthy child would." Neal couldn't see her face, but he could imagine her eyes flashing dangerously. There was no way this guy was going to leave her alone anytime soon, and frankly he was annoying Neal in his own pomposity.

Without a second thought, he moved from his hiding place, sidling up alongside the smaller woman, a charming smile lighting his face as he greeted the pair. "Dr. Scully, I've been waiting to speak to you. I was dying to hear your presentation, and was so excited about your advances with stem cell research." He glanced at Lenhoff, throwing out a hand towards the man's large girth. "Dr. Stephen Sinclair, nice to meet you Dr. Lenhoff."

The other man was too startled to do anything but take Neal's proffered handshake. "Nice to meet you Dr. Sinclair."

Neal grasped his meaty hand firmly before turning back to Dr. Scully's cautious gaze. "I wanted to have a chance to discuss with you more of your ideas alone if I could, sort of pick your brain about some of the things you discussed in there. Christian Fearon's case fascinates me." He wasn't lying about that last part that did fascinate him.

"I'm free for lunch," she murmured, glancing at Lenhoff, whose face fell slightly at that. "If you care to join me?"

"I'd love to." Neal smiled apologetically at Lenhoff. "It was a pleasure, doctor."

Lenhoff hardly got off an answering nod before Neal gently reached for Dr. Scully's elbow, propelling her away from the giant man. She flinched visibly from the gentle placement of fingers, but relaxed with an awkward smile as he pulled away. She wasn't someone who appreciated her personal space being intruded on.

"I should be pissed as hell you are here stalking me, but I'm thankful that you were." She glanced over her shoulder, through her coppery hair at the other man, still waddling his way down the hallway. "Lenhoff has been one of the biggest opponents against my work, he's written many articles about it. Frankly I think he just likes to annoy me."

"You seem to handle him well enough." Neal had to admit she maneuvered the entire situation admirably, even Neal's sudden appearance. Did anything shake her at all?

"Well, when you've sat before as many OPR boards as I have, a few windbags with too much money and not enough patients hardly bother you." She smirked knowingly at Neal, glancing him up and down again in her calculating sort of way. "Though I can't imagine you've seen to many of those."

"OPR boards," Neal swallowed the excitement and dread those three letters brought up in him. "No, can't say I have."

"Didn't think so." She motioned towards a bar on the ground level of the building, fairly crowded with other conference attendees, but just enough so that the two of them chatting wouldn't draw too much attention. Inside doctors from the presentation gathered around the bar, exchanging stories and chatting about patient cases, as Neal followed the small woman's bright hair as it thread its way through the crowd. One lone table sat, empty in a corner, and she promptly claimed it, setting her briefcase down as she settled into one of the small chairs.

"Can I buy you a drink," Neal offered, the least he could do to get her to speak to him.

"Pinot Grigio," she nodded. A wine usually orange or gold in color, fruity in taste, with subtle and complex flavors if done right. Of all the pinots, it was the one wine that certainly wasn't anything like it appeared to be on the surface…interesting choice for her.

The harried looking waiter stopped by as Neal put in two wine orders, and slipped the waiter extra for their trouble. He highly doubted any of the highly paid doctors were going to do the same for him during their stay. Dr. Scully noticed, but said nothing as she watched him expectantly.

"Obviously I'm not here to discuss Sandhoff's Disease with you." He smiled winningly, earning at least a small acknowledgement in return. He was at least getting father than Peter had that morning.

"I'm curious why you are here Mr. Caffrey." She remembered his name all right. "You don't look as if you fit the FBI's standard pay grade."

"And why do you say that?"

A slow smirk rose on her bow-like mouth, as she reached slim fingers across to pluck at the lapel of his suit. "Either they are dressing their recruits better these days, or you charge some fairly hefty fees working with Agent Burke?"

"Not as hefty as I would like, but that is probably because of the jewelry they make me wear." He lifted the cuff of his pant leg, revealing the anklet he wore underneath. It was instinct, really, something told him that this woman would respect him, trust him more if she saw he wasn't a standard FBI yes man waiting to drag her and her former partner back into whatever it was she was trying to hide from.

Her eyes flickered to the anklet, then up at him with amused surprise. She considered him for the briefest of moments carefully before responding. "What is White Collar doing with a serial killer case that requires Fox Mulder?"

How in the hell did she figure that out? "How did you guess I was White Collar?"

"Burke clued me in first," she replied, smiling at the waiter who promptly brought them their drinks and earned another large bill out of Neal. She sipped at the wine before leaning back in her chair. "Burke couldn't get the information out of Drummy or Skinner. Drummy I know works Missing Persons, if Burke was a part of that division, he would have already known how to find Mulder."

"Why didn't Drummy tell him?"

"Drummy hated the fact that Mulder was involved in Dakota Whitney's case to begin with. He was her partner. She died. The further away from Fox Mulder he can get, the better." Regret laced her words as she pulled quickly from her wine again. "As for Skinner, Walter would sooner die than allow that information out to someone he didn't know or trust. And he knows most everyone in Violent Crimes. Which ruled Burke out of that area. New York is a giant field office, but it has concentrations in specific areas. If it wasn't Missing Persons or VCU, chances are it had to be White Collar."

"Chances…but you didn't know." Neal was fascinated by how she pieced this together.

"Not till you showed off your bracelet." She nodded to his ankle. "I knew you weren't FBI. There was something about you. To arrogant, to cocky, too smart ass…" She chuckled softly as Neal grinned broadly at her characterization.

"Completely against the FBI book?"

"So far out of it they would never even let you in the Academy." She smirked slightly, with a hint of sad reminiscence. "Reminds me a lot of Mulder to be honest. The same charm, the same wit, the same inability to fit into that mold. You're a slightly better dresser though. At least you aren't color blind."

"Color blind?"

"Mulder has trouble telling different shades of red and green from one another, its not normal red/green color blindness, he can see certain variants. But it makes dressing him difficult."

Dressing him…clearly this woman was more than just a work partner at one point in time with the man. Perhaps there was something going on there, like Peter indicated. Or perhaps they were so much in each others pockets, just the two of them in their tiny division that it almost seemed like there was more going on there. "So you were saying about figuring me out?"

"Well, if you are on a bracelet, that either means they are afraid of you being a flight risk, which means you are on parole or they are afraid that you might be taken, which means you've turned states witness. If you had performed the latter, you'd be in witness protection, not here chatting with me. So my guess is that you are an ex-con." She narrowed her eyes softly for a moment, studying him. "I think it was some sort of minor federal offense, it couldn't have been long. Securities, fraud, minor counterfeiting?"

"Forgery," Neal murmured, delighted she hit so close. This woman was scarily intelligent. "Four years, I was one of the best they ever caught."

"But they still caught you."

"Peter caught me," he shrugged, not feeling as sorry about that as he perhaps would have once before. "He's good at what he does."

"But not on serial killers." Now the conversation looped back to Fox Mulder.

"Did Mulder teach you how to do that?" Neal was still stunned how she could put it together.

"I am a woman of keen observation on my own, Mr. Caffrey, else I'd make a very poor doctor," she replied archly, but her eyes softened with a smile. "However, being with Fox Mulder you can't help but absorb a thing or two from him."

"He was that good?" Neal had heard it uttered for the past two days, he was curious to know if it were true.

"Frighteningly so." She sipped again from her wine briefly, her eyes focusing distantly for the briefest of moments. "I've seen Mulder go places few in the Bureau could manage with any sanity. Very scary places."

"And you still stayed by his side." Neal meant it as a loaded remark. She paused, eyeing him over her wine glass before setting it down, watching him.

"Why does the FBI want Mulder on this?" It was time to get to the point, and the directness returned with a vengeance.

"Do you remember the Jonathan Harvey case?" Neal met her frank gaze with his own. She paused, thinking, before nodding her head briefly.

"What if I told you that the FBI has a series of murders on their hands that mimicked that case down to the last detail?"

"I would say you had a good copycat."

"Would Mulder say that?" Neal leaned forward, his elbows against the table. "Or would Mulder say that the real killer got away years ago, projecting himself into someone else?"

Scully's mouth thinned slightly, her face tensing as she considered his words. "Mulder did say something like that, yes."

"I think that the FBI is a bit more willing to listen to that story now, fifteen years later."

"Why now?" She knew that under normal circumstances they wouldn't. Scully wasn't an idiot to the politics of the FBI.

"One of the women who died was the niece of Senator Robert Whitmore."

"He sits on the Justice Committee." It was starting to make sense to Scully now why Mulder was being called in.

"And he can and will make life for the FBI difficult. He will probably call them out on a bunch of their recent practices and decisions…like allowing a convicted art thief out of prison before his sentence was completed to work as a consultant to the FBI." There was desperation hiding under his calm words, and he didn't care if she knew it. He needed her to know it, to understand. "I can't say for sure whose bright idea it was to make this case Peter's. Frankly I'm not buying the idea that they wanted our expertise on it. I don't know why the VCU couldn't handle it themselves. But they gave it to us, and they want Mulder on it, and I'm just here doing my job, trying to get this solved, so I don't have to face another four years in prison because I was stupid."

She was silent for several long moments, watching him, considering. Her gaze was guarded, she really had no reason to trust him. But he could tell that his words made something of an impact on her, if nothing else out of sympathy for his plight. Something still was holding her back, an unnamed quality that not even he with his charm, with his sob story, with his role as the outsider could penetrate. Scully shook her head softly, apologetically as she reached for her briefcase.

"I'm sorry Mr. Caffrey, I wish I could help, but I'm afraid you are talking to the wrong person." She began to rise, bag in hand, but he reached out to stop her, quelling her as once again he physically invaded her space. She really didn't like that at all.

"Dr. Scully, please….we need his insight."

"The FBI had his insight once, Mr. Caffrey, and they spurned it. This isn't a game for him, you can't just yank him in and out whenever you feel like and expect him to go away quietly when you've found your bad guy. This was Mulder's life, and he was forced out of it, made to give it up. And no one in eight years has cared about that. He was laughed at, called 'spooky' behind his back." Neal winced at the pejorative he had heard from even his own comrades. "They wanted to use his brilliance when it suited him, and shove him in a closet when it didn't. And I won't….I can't put him through that again. I can't go through it again."

There was a certain sense of defeat in her words, something that was jarring next to the strength that this woman displayed so openly to him. What had happened to these two that caused the sort of pain hiding just underneath the calm surface of Dr. Scully? He doubted she would open up to him, but he wondered if Mozzie's prodding into the FBI files found anything that might open up the mystery a little wider.

There was one key he had, and one question she probably could answer for him. Carefully he reached into his pocket and pulled out the neatly folded copy of the Lone Gunmen paper he had brought with him. He'd spent much of the presentation flipping through it, using it to amuse himself when the doctor's jargon got too much for him. And while on the whole he thought it was a bucket of all sorts of quackery, he could see what the attraction of it was for Mozzie. He smoothed it out, face up on the table, and was far from surprised to see the look of recognition that filled the doctor's pretty face.

"You knew them, didn't you?" Neal nodded towards the paper, though he hardly needed to ask the question. The tears that unexpectedly filled her eyes clearly said she did. She sighed softly, sinking back into her chair.

"They were friends of Mulder's…three of the craziest paranoids you would ever meet, but….damn good friends." She wiped quickly at her brimming eyes, accepting gratefully the tissue Neal produced for her in as gentlemanly a fashion as possible. "They died….doing something insane, I never got the whole story. I pulled some strings to get them buried in Arlington. I thought they would find it funny they ended up there." She laughed in a watery sort of way. "They deserved to be there…they died heroes."

"Mulder was their informant then…the one in the Bureau?"

"Well, usually, though I can't say that they didn't quote me often enough in this thing." She snorted despite the tears, a soft chuckle erasing away some of the sadness. "Where did you get this?"

"A friend of mine knew them from some hacking circles. He was a fan." It was the best way Neal could describe Moz's fascination. "Dr. Scully, these guys died trying to get the truth out there to everyone, whether they wanted to hear it or not. And I have a feeling that Mulder shared that sentiment with them, correct."

Something horribly frightening passed across Scully's features before she nodded slowly, schooling herself against whatever Neal's words conjured up inside of her. "Mulder wouldn't allow for any more women to be hurt, no. He'd rather be involved, find the truth."

"But you don't want it?"

"It's not who we are anymore, Mr. Caffrey." She insisted on this firmly, shaking her head, sending remaining tears flying from her damp lashes.

"Don't you think Mulder should have the right to say yes or no on this?" Neal was wearing her down, he could see that. "This was his world at one point in time, Dr. Scully. And while it might not be anymore, that's not to say we still don't need him and what he brings to the table. Your friends would be ashamed of him if he didn't at least do that."

A long, tired sigh emanated from her as she fingered the yellowing pages of the old newspaper, memories from a different time earning a tired sort of smile. "I can put you in touch with him." She had to pull those words out of herself reluctantly. She was still not happy with this.

Near giddy relief filled Neal as he suppressed the triumphant grin that wanted to split his face. "Dr. Scully, the FBI appreciates this."

"Wait until you've spoken to Mulder first before you thank me."

"If you can give me his number, I can call him personally, perhaps Peter and I can go and speak to him…."

"No need," she shook coppery head, pulling out her Blackberry from her bag, and tapping the screen twice. She raised the phone to her ear as Neal watched, realization starting to form as the doctor wiped the last of the tears from her eyes.

"Hi there." The sadness that had enveloped the small woman now was gone in a flash of a brilliant, warm smile, a grin that seemed to forget that Neal was sitting there forming on her face. "The presentation went well, yes." She paused, her eyebrows rising, a tolerant rolling of eyes following soon after. "What am I wearing? Would you believe nothing but a smile, Mulder?"

Neal choked on the wine he had been trying to discreetly use to cover the snort that was forming. She ignored his spluttering as an evil smile crept across her face. "Of course, I might have to explain that to the handsome young man who just treated me to wine at the bar. No, I promise you don't have to shoot him, Mulder, in fact he would like to speak to you." She lowered the phone, holding it out to Neal's stunned, streaming face, a look of impish delight on her otherwise schooled features.

"Not all rumors are false, Mr. Caffrey. Of course I know where Fox Mulder is. He's been living with me for the last seven years."

On the other end of the line, Neal could hear a soft, masculine voice chuckle.


	8. Chapter 8

_FBI New York City Field Office Headquarters_

_New York_

"How did you talk her into it?" Peter hardly sounded surprised, more curious.

"Believe it or not, there were one or two agents around this place who used to value decency and doing the right thing. I guess they tend to run them out of this joint." Neal shrugged as he passed Peter coffee. "Some of the rumors about the two of them were true…or at least now they are, clearly whatever they were when they worked for the FBI, they're a couple now."

"I think it's sort of romantic," Lauren grinned, snagging her own latte out of the proffered tray Neal carried. "Two partners, as opposite as could be, working together despite it all, end up falling in love."

"You and Jones planning on running away together?" Peter glanced dubiously at Jones, lounging across the conference table from him.

"I think my fiancée might object….sorry Cruz."

"No offense taken." She shrugged as she settled next to him, arranging her legal pad in front of her. "So when does Mulder arrive?"

"Dr. Scully said his flight arrives at noon, they would head over after that." Neal glanced at his watch. It was a quarter till one. He knew the doctor was still nervous about getting anywhere near the FBI on this. "Mulder's already grilled me on the particulars of the case. It's been fifteen years and he remembered it as if it was yesterday." Neal had spent an hour the day before, sitting in the restaurant, trying to spin off facts for the unseen man on the phone, whose mind seemed to work a million times faster than Neal's own sharp one. "Was he always so…intense?"

Peter nodded. "I think that was why he liked the basement, no one to worry about keeping up with him, save for Scully."

"She's pretty intimidating herself, no wonder the two of them got along." Neal whistled long and low. "Still they are both skittish about this….what the hell happened to them that sent them packing?"

"No one knows," Peter frowned, nursing his coffee thoughtfully. "I can't get heads or tales out of it from HR. Everything is rumor and conjecture. But I don't think there were a great many people who were sad to see them go. And I can't imagine OPR cried buckets when Mulder left."

"Sounds like the type of guy you and I need to talk to," Neal muttered quietly. Peter's jaw tightened in silent acknowledgment, but with nothing more said on the subject. Instead he turned to the case before them, glancing at the files that they had.

"So what we know, three murders, looks to be serial in nature, all women who run around in the circles we are all familiar with. Anything connecting them so far?" He looked first to Jones, who had been combing through the particulars of the women's lives, trying to find some connection.

"So far I found a few possible ties," Jones tossed the different pages onto the table between them for the others to scan. "Amanda Whitmore and Christi MacNichols both were part of Arts First, a charity organization working to build up fine arts programs in some of the inner city schools. That doesn't tie in Rachel Lidow, though. Lidow though is a member of the same sorority as Christ MacNichols, one of those rich, elite ones that pushes the social, upward mobility of its sisters."

"No co-ed slumber parties?" Neal sighed, ignoring the point of Lauren's shoe as it connected with his shin.

"Sadly not, and those two didn't go to the same college, Christi MacNichols went to Yale, Rachel Lidow to Columbia. I looked through their social calendars, not a lot on there. They sometimes were seen at the same events, went to the same places, museums, parties, the type of thing the rich and up-and-coming in town go to. None of them seemed to like the celebrity venues though, which may mean our killer isn't into the famous."

"Just the powerful," Peter mused, glancing through the data. "Anyone in common they know?"

"Still working that," Jones assured him, glancing back to the bullpen below. "I have the team looking through all their friends, acquaintances, co-workers, hired help."

"Agent Ponce said that the last time Jonathan Harvey was the tie…he was an art dealer." Neal frowned down at the dated picture of the middle aged, smiling man, mild mannered and silver haired, hardly looking as if he would set about to kill anyone. "Maybe its something they all dealt with?"

"Maybe," Peter glanced at Jones. "Check to see if any of their acquaintances include someone that handled something for all three, art dealers, lawyers, bankers, investors. Perhaps our copycat is using Harvey's methods as well."

"Right," Jones nodded, rising smoothly to move to the floor, stopping as he glanced towards the back of the office. "Hey boss, I think your visitors are here."

Peter popped up, eyes looking immediately to the elevators as Neal glanced curiously himself. "All right, gang, play nice, be cordial, remember we asked Mulder here. He could tell us to go to hell and leave us hanging in the breeze if he wants. No 'Spooky' comments, nothing snotty about aliens, no comments about his sister."

"Even though you called him Spooky just yesterday?" Neal glanced up at him.

Peter didn't dignify him with a response. "Remember, Mulder was a thirteen year vet with the Bureau when he left, treat him with a bit of respect, and try to make us not look too bad."

"Are you telling us that because you are actually worried about us or you?" Jones looked hardly fretful over the appearance of the legendary Fox Mulder, despite what the rumors said.

"Both…just be nice." Peter hissed, grabbing his coat and slipping it on as he made his way towards the door. "Neal, you're the one whose made contact, come be polite."

"It's what I do best," Neal chuckled, following Peter out of the conference room and across the bullpen to where the infamous former agents stood, watching the room with wary caution.

If Neal had to imagine what Fox Mulder looked like from his conversation on the phone, he wasn't sure the man standing there would be it. From all the talk swirling about him, Neal had imagined a thin, weedy sort of guy, one who twitched under florescent light and glanced nervously to the ceiling, muttering about always being watched. Not that Dr. Scully would be attracted to that, he reasoned, but for whatever reason the discussion of aliens and other strange activity had painted a picture in his mind of a cellar dweller, a man who rarely saw sunlight and could hardly coordinate his tie collection.

Fox Mulder was none of those things. Taller than Neal and closer to Peter's height, he towered over the petite doctor whom he hovered over protectively. Far from a weedy, scrawny, twitchy paranoid, however, he seemed like a normal-looking, admittedly attractive guy, the sort Peter would hang out with knocking out a couple of beers and shooting hoops. Even years out of the FBI, when most former agents had gone to seed, Mulder looked like he was still ready to give chase, something Neal could barely manage on a good day. The intensity Neal had heard in his conversation last night hardly seemed evident in the man's quiet demeanor and lazy sweep of the room. No tin foil hats, no "we are not alone" t-shirts. If anything Fox Mulder looked about as regular FBI as you could get.

"Fox Mulder," Peter held out a welcoming hand, met gingerly by Mulder's own. "Agent Peter Burke, thank you for helping us out."

"Not a problem," he murmured, his gravely monotone the same one that Neal recognized from the phone the day before. He was nervous, his hooded hazel eyes glanced quickly across the curious onlookers, knowing that they all was interested in the fact Spooky Mulder had arrived in the office. Still he managed to betray about as little emotion as Scully did, even less as he glanced towards Neal, almost instinctively knowing who he was.

"Neal Caffrey." It wasn't a question, but more of a statement. Neal nodded, meeting Mulder's handshake.

"That's me," Neal glanced towards Peter by way of explanation. Peter stepped in smoothly.

"Neal's our consultant here in this division, he was the one who spoke to Dr. Scully yesterday."

"The art forger," Mulder nodded knowingly as if more to himself. Neal shrugged, it was hardly a secret around the office. "I read up on you last night…Copenhagen…how did you manage to get away from Interpol?"

"Copenhagen," Neal's eyes widened at the man, delighted he had taken such an interest. "How did you find that…"

"I have my sources." A hint of a lazy smile formed as he shrugged. "I have to say any guy who manages that and still talks Scully into digging me out of my cave could probably sell a plot in hell to Jesus."

"What's with all the religious references," Neal breathed sideways to Peter, who ignored him and ushered the two former agents inside.

"So…Mulder," Peter stumbled slightly at the former agents name. "Neal tells me he's brought you up to date on the case?"

"You have a copycat on the Harvey case." Mulder pulled the information up as easily as if he was looking at it in front of him. "Three murders so far, all meeting the right profile, same MO, same style, even the same notes left behind?"

"Down to the handwriting, that's how VCU connected it." Peter ushered everyone up the stairs to the conference room. "Needless to say the families weren't thrilled when they learned about the case you and Dr. Scully ran fifteen years ago."

"You mean where the killer got away." Mulder uttered his statement with the confidence of his convictions, which didn't stun Neal, not after speaking with him. But it brought Peter up short, stopping him as he rounded the conference table, staring at the former agent's laconic shrug.

"I'm aware of your theories, Mulder, but we are currently treating the case as a copycat investigation." He slid a copy of the file across the table surface towards Mulder, complete with the crime scene photos that had horrified Neal. "You can tell from these that similarities are more than just surface deep."

Though logically Neal knew that Scully was a doctor, and Mulder had once worked in the VCU, it startled him that neither showed much reaction to raw brutality portrayed in the crime scene photos. An art thief Neal might be, a forger, a liar, and many other things, but a murderer was never his thing. Crime had been a game for him, a puzzle, something that he could wrap his mind around and take apart. There was no thought to murder. Perhaps in covering it up, yes, but never in the actual act itself, the taking of a life needed no thought. It was a brutal act pure and simple. And it was an act Neal had no desire to ever commit.

"Your original profile for the case was insightful." Peter pressed on, pulling out the previous, Harvey file. "You were the one who picked up that the killer was after these women for the power, not the money."

"Not the power, the domination." His hazel eyes only flickered at the file in Peter's hand, as he leaned back in his chair, fingers worrying a crease in his jeans. "The killer in the original set of murders went out powerful women, the money didn't matter to him as much as the control the women had. The first victims were similarly women in positions of authority, heads of companies, organizations, leaders within a community. In my profile I theorized that our killer was likely white, male, mid-to-late 30's, educated and likely in some sort of industry that allowed access to a certain economic class of women. It was probably the killer had a difficult history with women at some point, perhaps a mother, sister, former girlfriend or wife, and the resentment of that relationship festered into a psychosis centered on women who reminded him of that past. With each new murder he commits, he is able to expunge the shame, anger, and resentment of his past…but never completely. Hence why his murders are serial in nature."

Not once had Mulder even so much as glanced at the old file still held tightly in Peter's hand. He had quietly and efficiently rattled off his own profile as if he had written it that morning, not fifteen years before. Neal blinked stunned at Peter, who stared openly at Mulder's mild smile, as Scully tried and failed to hide a quiet smirk beside him.

"You remember all your old profiles?" Peter swallowed.

"Most of them, I rarely forget a thing. But in all fairness many serial killers do have a fairly consistent base to their profiles. It's rare that a serial killer isn't some middle-aged, white guy with a mommy complex, a bad relationship, repressed sexual desires, or a history of sexual abuse. In this case, the killer wasn't acting out of sexual desire, he was acting out of a need to prove dominance, to be the alpha male over women who would usurp that position in his life." He nodded slowly to the case file. "That's why you can't make me believe Harvey, in all willingness, did it."

And here the spell of Mulder's freakish memory recall broke, as Peter's suddenly seemed to remember just what Mulder's postulation was, and why he was reluctant to call Spooky on the case. "Harvey's DNA was found at the last three crimes scenes, and he was known to be with all six of his victims before he died. His home records show he had methodically stalked and worked his way into these women's lives before their deaths, we know Harvey did it."

"I'm not denying that Harvey wasn't the instrument for the murders, but I don't believe Harvey was the real murderer here, Agent Burke." Mulder refused to back down from Peter's surety, in fact it really only seemed to egg him on. "If you look at Harvey's background he doesn't meet the profile criteria. He worked in the art industry, yes, but late-20's, from a happy, mid-class home, loving sisters, adoring parents. Not to mention he was openly homosexual for years before he was tied to these murders."

"So the profile didn't exactly fit," Peter seemed hardly bothered by it.

"He's got a point, Peter," Neal murmured, as he too began to see the flaws that Mulder was picking up on with the Harvey assessment. "I knew many Jonathan Harvey's in my line, those men didn't turn to brutalizing and killing women."

Again, Mulder seemed impressed with Neal. But his delight was tempered by Peter's irritation as he tossed the Harvey case file on the conference room table. "Whether Harvey was capable of doing it or not, he was still linked by physical evidence at the crime scenes. And he's still dead…isn't that right, Dr. Scully?"

The doctor had been silent up to this point, watching the proceedings with an air of bemusement, and seemed slightly startled Peter would address her. Her large, blue eyes blinked slowly as she regarded Peter for a long moment, before nodding. "I did the autopsy myself, Harvey is dead."

"But even though he's dead, and I'm not refuting that, he still may not be our killer, wouldn't you agree." Mulder turned easily on Scully, challenging, as if this was fifteen years before, and she was still his work partner, handing him her results. For Scully's part she hardly flinched, in fact Neal thought she seemed pleased.

"I would agree except for the simple fact that Agent Burke has already pointed out that Harvey was linked by physical evidence to those other murders. And they stopped as soon as he died. He was our killer then, Mulder, I have to agree with Burke's assessment, this is a copycat, nothing more."

"But even you at the time agreed that it didn't make sense that Harvey did it."

"I said it didn't strike me that Jonathan Harvey would be capable of doing it, but we all know that people under duress do strange things, Mulder. Anything could have tipped him into a psychotic state, his mother had just died of breast cancer, his business was struggling, there wasn't any reason he couldn't have done it."

"But there wasn't a good reason why he did."

"And you really want to believe he was possessed by the spirit of a wandering serial killer, who used him to continue his bloody killing spree?"

"It would certainly explain the situation that Burke is finding now, wouldn't it?"

"I think a copycat would explain Burke's situation more neatly than psychic projection, Mulder."

"It's convenient, Scully, but it doesn't tell the whole story. What bout the murders five years before that, and the ones three before that, all the same MO, the same style, everything."

"You of all people have to admit that serial killers sometimes show a range of similarities in their MO's, it doesn't mean that they are all being possessed by the spirits of deranged psychopaths."

"You might want to go ask Bill Patterson about that sometime, I'm sure he'd love to fill you in on his theories on just that subject. He's had plenty of time to think about it in prison."

It was as if no one else was in the room at that moment. Neal watched, fascinated as the pair of them fell into their back and forth, as naturally as breathing for them, point and counterpoint, neither angry or condescending, but both equally matched to one another's argumentative skill. It was highly entertaining to say the least, watching them test and prod the boundaries of each other's opinions, but there was also something extremely intimate about their banter. It was as if this was merely the extension of a conversation they had been having for years…perhaps it was.

"Are they always like this," Neal leaned over to Peter, unable to look away from the fascinating tableau in front of him.

"I don't know," Peter admitted in a hushed whisper, equally fascinated. "But it goes a long way to explain how they worked so well together."

"This is much better than one of your basketball games."

"I wouldn't say that," Peter groused, looking for a way to halt the fervid discussion. "Mr. Mulder, Dr. Scully." His voice rang as he caught their attention, both pausing in their debate to look over at him, as if just noticing what they were doing. "Souls floating around, psychic projection, no offense I may just be an average Joe, FBI guy working the White Collar division, and nothing as exotic as the X-files. But I'd like an explanation that I can at least understand before I scoff at it."

Identical gazes flickered to each other in some sort of silent conversation that neither Neal nor Peter was privy to. Whatever passed between them, it was Mulder who took up the explanation. "Psychic project is a theory first discussed in the 19th century whereby a person can actually psychically project themselves mentally into another body."

"Project themselves into another body?" Peter drawled out the words, as if hoping that by speaking them more slowly he could actually understand what it was that Mulder meant. "You mean possession?"

"In a sense." The most disturbing aspect of this entire conversation was that Mulder was completely serious. "Most of the literature of the period discussed animal possession, the use of creatures to explore the world in other guises, but human projection was known about, if the subject was weak willed, surprised, or willing. A month before Jonathan Harvey was seen with the first victim his mother succumbed to a long battle with breast cancer. The gallery he owned said he left for bereavement time, but didn't return afterwards. My guess is that Harvey happened somehow upon the psychic entity of our real killer, whether through contact or through accident. But whatever the case the man who his friends and family knew as Jonathan Harvey would never have committed those crimes. Something occurred to change him."

"And you assumed its because he was…possessed?" As if flailing for some sort of sane support in an ocean of improbability, Scully for rationality, but she proved to be of little comfort to him, only smiling in the mysterious sort of way she had, glancing at Neal with an "I told you so" sort of glitter in her eye.

But Mulder could apparently sniff condescension in the wind. He bristled immediately, seriousness flashing to irritation in an instant. "Listen, Agent Burke, you can sit and scoff all you want, you are the ones calling me in on this case. I was happy hiding in my discredited hole in Virginia, I leave the FBI alone, they leave me alone, that's how we work. I've taken enough shit from belittling assholes around here for years who piss on my work when it suits them, but come running to me for answers when the weird fuckery hits the fan."

"Mulder," Scully's hiss beside him was vaguely scandalized as Neal saw the situation melting quickly. Peter had the social grace and tact of a buffalo in a china shop, and could read people just as easily sometimes. For all his gift in investigation, Neal seriously wondered how he hadn't managed to set off this time bomb any earlier than he did.

Mulder continued to rant. "Scully, they are the ones calling me in because they didn't listen fifteen years ago, and now they are paying for it. I don't have to put up with…"

"Mr. Mulder," Neal cut him off, snagging the other man's attention quickly as it flipped like a whip to Neal, his eyes blazing. No problem, he'd dealt with worse in his life, dealt with worse at the FBI. "Listen, you know, you are right. We are the ones who called you in here, and we are the ones that begged for your help." Pointed glance at Peter, who frowned stormily at Neal's point, but couldn't dispute the truth, he had been treading dangerously close to the line he'd warned them all to say away from. "Peter isn't as familiar with your work, nor are any of us. And we are in a tough spot here. If we don't get this solved, it could mean hell to pay for the Bureau. It could mean certain practices get a bit more scrutiny. It could mean I go back to prison to finish out the sentence Peter here has so kindly got me out of."

Neal tried to get a beat on Mulder, on what made him tick. So far he knew he was a passionate man but something happened to him, to the both of them that made them jumpy at the FBI's request, standoffish, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop. But underneath all of that, Neal sensed Mulder ultimately was a man of fairness. Else he wouldn't be standing up for Jonathan Harvey so completely. If he could tap into that, perhaps he could ease the situation, smooth over Peter's propensity for brusqueness, and keep this investigation on track.

"Look, whatever the particulars were from the case years ago, this is the case we have now." Neal gestured towards the case file lying just beside Mulder's splayed fingers. "Three women, perfectly innocent women, brutally killed. Their families simply want some answers. And whether it was a copycat murderer or psychic projection, you are the guy who can help us find that. We don't do murders here, frankly the idea of a dead body spooks the hell out of me, but for whatever reason they dumped this in our lap. And you are the person we need to get help from to figure this out, before someone else dies."

Whether his words were effective or not on Mulder, Scully appreciated them. Perhaps neither one of them was used to such a frank plea from anyone associated with the FBI. She nodded gratefully as Mulder's fingers inched towards the file, picking it up, studying again the crime scene photos therein. He was silent as he did so for several long moments. What was he looking for, Neal wondered, as he flipped through each gory black and white, a frown deepening with each new angle of the broken, bloodied bodies.

"Whoever you have doing this, the profile is different." Mulder muttered, setting the pictures down on the table one by one, side by side, as he stood to lean over them, glancing at them all at the same time.

"I thought that might go without saying." Peter began, till Neal elbowed him quiet. If Mulder noticed the sarcasm he overlooked it as he focused on the pictures in front of him.

"The previous murders you could tell were done by the same person, and by a man." He waved vaguely at Amanda Whitmore's bashed skull. "Something isn't quite right here, the way they were brutalized isn't right." He glanced towards Scully. "What do you think, you remember the last victims."

"Yes, but its been fifteen years, I'd have to look through the old autopsy notes." She leaned in to where Mulder was pointing, analyzing the area he indicated. "Though maybe…I guess I can see something of a point."

"Point?" Peter rose too, leaning across the table to try and see what Mulder and Scully were picturing. Neal was more than happy to allow them to look at dead all they wanted.

"The nature of the wounds indicates the manner of attack was different, and there is something to the brutality shown here…I can't figure it out. Not yet."

"Could it just be a difference in the murderer?" That seemed the most logical explanation.

"Likely, but it effects the profile of our murderer, the type of person we are looking for." Mulder straightened, hands at his waist, thoughtful. "I'll need to get my hands on as much about these women and their lives as possible, who they were with, what they did of a day, and any connection they might have had to one another."

"Already working on it," Peter shot back, thought with a drop less sarcasm than before. "After all, we are the FBI."

"Yeah, I know, hence why I had to ask." Mulder gathered up the photographs, studying them again briefly before shoving them back in the case folder. "Can I get copies of these to study, to see what I can piece together myself?"

"Keep that one and speak to Jones about what we have so far, he's been putting together the information to this point. Maybe something he has can tie all this together."

"Maybe," Mulder hedged politely, sensing that Peter was ending their meeting and not looking particularly sorry about it. "I hope that my expertise proves useful for you after all, Agent Burke."

So many layers of meaning in that phrase that Neal perceived, and it was killing him not knowing what was going on here with the of them. Peter only nodded as the pair rose and made their way out of the door, Scully glancing backwards to Neal as she followed behind Mulder's footsteps. She didn't want to do this, something about all this was terrifying her, but she was doing it…and all because Neal had asked her to do it.

"Spooky doesn't even begin to cover half of it." Peter whistled low as he shook his head, staring at the two of them as they made their way out. "I thought he was going to bite my head off."

"You weren't exactly being Mr. Congeniality, Peter," Neal felt he had to point out Peter's own bad behavior. "He was right, we asked him here, and we are the ones who were acting like he was out of line."

"You don't mean to tell me you buy into that psychic projection crap, do you?" Peter stared at Neal as if he'd grown a second head

"No, but the fact of the matter is that the Bureau needs him right now, and I need him so I don't go back to prison. And psychic projection or not, Peter, he's not crazy…not by a long shot." No, there was a scary brilliance to Fox Mulder, just like everyone said. The question was could Neal convince him to concentrate that brilliance not just on the case, but on Garret Fowler as well?


	9. Chapter 9

Mozzie was waiting in Neal's apartment when he got in, surrounded by files, and sipping at a glass of what Neal hoped wasn't his last bottle of Australian red. "Just help yourself, Mozzie, make yourself comfortable. Do I have food left in my fridge?"

"No, I had to beg to June for sustenance, you need a serious shopping trip, Caffrey."

"I'll add that to my to-do list, what do you got?" Neal skipped the usual pleasantries and went right for the paperwork stacked around his dining table in wobbling, teetering, triplicate heaps. This wasn't what he had on Fowler, was it?

"You wanted the files on Dana Scully and Fox Mulder, so I got them for you." He waved his hands around the small city of stacked papers. "The complete, unredacted, unedited version of their careers. It reads so much better than the abridged version."

Neal's eyes widened at the stacks and stacks, easily three times that for Fowler, covering the table, the chairs, even some of the floor around Neal's small kitchenette. "How many trees got slaughtered for this one."

"Let's just say my friendly contact at Kinko's isn't so friendly anymore." Moz waved his hand expansively across it all. "You have no idea what these two were up to! It was amazing! Like something straight out of those Lone Gunmen newspapers!"

Neal wasn't so sure that was the type of thing Peter would appreciate hearing. "Anything useful to our cause?"

"Well, if you are looking for an ally against OPR and Garrett Fowler, one who is paranoid, suspicious, knows a lot about the underhanded, sneaky tactics of the FBI, and totally would buy any conspiracy theory you throw out there, you picked the right person. Fox Mulder's probably heard them all." Moz reached to the top of the stack closest to him, pulling of a giant, thick folder. "Man had more than a few run-ins with OPR himself when he was a Fibbie, though I suspect half the time he sort of liked it. I get the feeling this Mulder character enjoys flipping off 'the man' as it were, he's our sort of people for an ex-Fibbie."

"I'm getting that picture." As if the way Mulder nearly exploded on Peter earlier in the day hadn't been a big indication on his feelings for FBI order and authority. "So outside of supermarket tabloid fodder and a blatant disregard for FBI protocol, what do we got with our two FBI agents?" What was the story behind them, the real story he wondered. Not just the FBI rumor mill, the half-remembered gossip passed around by Jones and Cruz, but the real events that made both the former agents so skittish…so wary?

"The two of them would make Peter's starched suit curl up in horror if he knew half of these stories." Mozzie seemed perversely delighted at the very idea of disrupting Peter. "You wouldn't guess it at first though, not with these two. He was some golden boy with the Bureau, some genius with condemnations out the ying-yang, on the fast track to be J. Edgar Hoover."

"So I heard." Neal listened as he rummaged through his small refrigerator, noting that Moz had a point, it was woefully empty in there. Snagging a mineral water, he wandered back to the fortress of paper surrounding his friend, clearing a chair of the mess to settle into the chaos.

"Your doctor wasn't much better, Maryland, Stanford, a physics degree from one, her medical degree from the other. She probably would be head of forensics at Quantico if it wasn't for her reassignment."

"How did that happen?" The bottle's metallic cap cracked and fizzed as Neal opened it, sipping from the stinging, bubbling liquid.

"Not sure, but I'm guessing when your alien chaser decided to piss off every power that was in the Executive Branch of the US Government, they decided they needed someone with the hint of respectability about her to try and keep him in line."

Neal nodded as his eyes flickered slowly across the mounds of paper, all smelled fresh of printer ink. "I see how effective that ended up being."

"Yeah, well I suppose that none of them expected that putting the scientist with the Bureau crank job would actually give legitimacy to the work he was doing. They tried separating the two of them once, but it didn't seem to work."

"Why not?"

"I guess somehow Dr. Scully ended up kidnapped." Moz frowned at the paperwork in front of him, his voice drawling out his words as if he was discussing her getting a tooth filling. "They don't say much of what happened, only that it was some deranged, former FBI agent who made off with her. She was missing for weeks."

That explained why it was Mulder hovered over his beautiful, petite partner as if he'd cut the throat of anyone who came near her. "Did it have to do with the X-files?"

"Nope, no one knows for sure. I can't tell. Anyway, she came back; the two of them started working together and proceeded to have a litany of OPR appearances. Insubordination, misuse of Bureau resources, disregard for FBI protocol, endangering of civilian life…."

"How much of that do you really think is a legitimate beef with the two of them?"

"Depends on how close they got to digging up those dirty secrets OPR likes to cover up." Moz had no trouble buying into a secret government conspiracy; it was his standard, operating procedure. "I'm telling you, Neal, these two…they covered everything from creepy serial killers, to aliens, to mutant fluke creatures in the sewers."

"Mutant what?" The bitter taste of mineral nearly went up Neal's nose as he reached haphazardly for one of the files.

"Fluke worms, you know makes you think twice about using the sewers for your escape routes, doesn't it." Moz leered shamelessly as he continued. "I'm telling you, these two had a case load that read like every conspiracy theorists dream."

"Then what happened?" That was what was ultimately bothering Neal, what was it about these two that had them skittering away from the place they worked for, that had them hiding so deep even their own former boss refused to divulge what was going on. What was it about Mulder and Scully's presence that made everyone so nervous, on edge? The mystery made no sense. So what if the guy chased aliens, there were stranger things in this world….such as men who spent their lives forging pieces of art because for the thrill of it, for example.

"I haven't been able to piece it all together yet, it's all sort of scattered between expense reports and official files." Moz waved a haphazard hand across the small mountain of papers. "But I drug out a few things." He pulled out a tiny notebook from his pocket, cover in jagged scrawls. "You know the basics, he's a psychologist, and she's a doctor, yadda, yadda. Her family is pretty straight up, career Navy all around, but his family is more than a bit hinky."

"Is that a technical term?" Neal wondered where his fruit bowl went in the morass of papers scattered everywhere.

"In hacking circles it means something's not quite right." Mozzie ignored him as he moved on. "His sister disappeared from the family home when he was twelve, no one knows where, but they ran an official inquiry through all major channels as his father was State Department."

So that much of the story was true. "Did they ever find her?"

"No, she was finally declared dead a few years later. Apparently that was the catalyst for all the rest of it, the aliens, the X-files, everything. The loss of one person in his life drove him to…all of this." Moz's eyes flickered around the room, Neal's following close behind. Losing someone driving you to do what others considered futile, foolish…that was a feeling Neal could understand intimately.

"Losing someone who means so much to you can lead you to do crazy things."

"As stupid as breaking out of prison with just a bit on your sentence left was, this was a life's work. " The awe in Mozzie felt at all of this was barely contained. "I don't have records of the cases, but from what I have read this Mulder and your doctor friend investigations weren't something you would find on one of those TV crime procedurals."

"So is that why OPR tried to shut them up?" The more and more Neal got to know about the Office of Professional Responsibility; the less and less he liked it.

"Amongst many reasons, I'm guessing…probably it was just as much to divert them from what they nearly uncovered as it was because the FBI was embarrassed."

"Uncovering something that OPR was trying to hide?" Perhaps Garrett Fowler wasn't the only one with secrets. What other things did they keep under those rocks with them?

"They busted one section chief when it came out he was involved in a conspiracy with a pharmaceutical company and the FDA working on illegal disease studies and drug production."

Nothing sounded particularly spooky about that. "So they busted a crooked agent, if you haven't noticed there are many of those abounding."

"Yeah, but it was the same section chief who assigned Dr. Scully to work with Mulder in the first place." Moz was enjoying the strange, delicious twists that all of these threads were taking; clearly loving delving into the dark secrets of the FBI he'd been forced to work with by his association with Neal. "There is all sorts of high level weirdness swirling around these two. They split them apart, they reassigned them, and they tried splitting them apart again. They closed the division down several times, each time someone pulled strings to get it back open again."

"Who?"

"I can't tell, not through this at least. My best guess is that someone wanted it open for something, but that part confuses me. Someone wanted troublemakers, but I don't know the why."

Did they really need or want to know why? "So needless to say when it comes rare music boxes and strange, Justice Department conspiracies involving ex-cons and federal employees they might have a tad of experience?"

"They might be your experts." Moz muttered, picking through his notes fretfully.

"You know what is scary? Fox Mulder and you have a lot in common? A certain disregard for the rules, a disdain for the appropriate channels of authority, he laughs in the face of all that law and order that you suit so loves."

"I don't know, Peter can have a certain disregard for authority when it suits him." Especially with Garrett Fowler. "So all this I got from Bureau scuttlebutt, none of it explains why it is that the Bureau laughs at them behind one hand while reaching the other out to them for help. And why it is the two of them are so scared of it. They saw something, Moz, they know something, something that everyone is scared of and no one is talking about." They were outsiders in this game, much as Neal was…and his insatiable curiosity wanted to know why.

"Think about it, Neal, these two made a living prodding into the dark closets of the federal government, looking for what's inside. You and I, we like to trick them, fool them, and maybe make them stumble a bit, living outside their rules, but we never try to poke the beast. You do that for long enough…" Moz shrugged helplessly.

"They poked in the wrong places, didn't they…something happened." That would explain the doctor's admit fear about returning and Mulder's outburst in their meeting that afternoon.

"There is some evidence of something happening, yeah."

"Like what?"

Moz was uncharacteristically grim as he reached across the table for an official looking piece of paper. "I found a warrant out for his arrested…dated eight years ago and put out through the FBI and the US Marshalls. It says he was an escaped convict."

"Convict?" Neal snatched at the paper, glancing over it quickly. He'd seen a few of these sorts of warrants out for himself. "Convicted of what?"

"Murder." Worry was settling between Moz's eyebrows, the familiar unction in his tone creeping up.

Murder? "Well, obviously something was going on to create this, I mean…the FBI wouldn't have called him otherwise, and he wouldn't have agreed to come."

"You said it yourself, no one wanted to talk about it, not even his old boss."

"Maybe there was a reason for it…deep undercover…"

"He left the Bureau a year before that, officially. Shortly after he supposedly came back from the dead."

"What?" This was getting weirder and weirder. "Hold up…dead?"

"That's what I'm saying, dead. He was dead, buried, put in the ground, and then dug up a few months later and pronounced alive."

This was insanity. "Wait…this all has to be an elaborate act…something…"

"The good doctor is the one who identified him as being dead."

"She could have been mistaken, didn't recognize the body…in a time of distress."

"Likely not. She was pregnant at the time, and I'd lay even money one who the father of her child was. And that means she probably recognized him much better than most others." Moz laid another certificate in front of him. It was from the State of Georgia, dated May of 2001 for a baby boy, named William.

"They didn't mention having a child together."

"That's because they probably don't have it anymore." Neal didn't like Moz's grim tone. "There's a case I found, Dr. Scully's baby was taken. As far as I can tell it ended up OK, but after that her HR records were annotated with her dropping her dependent status on all of her official paperwork. Reading between the lines, she gave the boy up for adoption."

"And where was Mulder?"

"The paper trail ends on him. He'd left the FBI by then and doesn't surface again till that warrant." None of it felt right, none of this, not to Mozzie and certainly not to Neal. "Nothing was ever issued on the doctor though. She resigned shortly after that, and then turned up in a residential program in neurology soon after. As for him, he went off the grid until two years ago, when he was called in on the case of some missing FBI agent. The warrant was voided then, and eventually everything was dropped…even the murder conviction."

"How does that even work? Pardons don't even expunge it from your record."

"I don't know." And it was clear that Moz didn't care to find out either. "Whatever these two were into, Neal, it was a big deal. No one gets declared dead, disappears, and then gets convicted but allowed to run free and hide like that without there being something major involved. Look at you, you got four years, and another four when you escaped, and they caught you both times for nothing more than forgery."

What in the world could possibly be so frightening to the powers that be that they would rather ignore it than try to cover it up? "You think that's why the doctor gave up their child?"

"I'd say it's likely…and whatever it is, it's probably why they weren't too keen on taking up the FBI's offer again. The two of them are hiding from something. And I don't know how willing they are to help you snag Fowler if they have something on their own record they would rather forget."

Was it too frightening to use them as allies? Neal wasn't so certain of that. After all, from the picture Mozzie was painting, the two of them had been at the wrong end of whatever FBI/OPR plan was being worked up. There couldn't be a lot of love lost for the powers that be who had jerked them around, ruined their lives, cost them so much. And yet….he'd seen that terror lingering in Dr. Scully's eyes, the pain of something horrible that happened. Had it just been this…or was there something more.

"Neal," Mozzie was leaning thoughtfully back in his chair, surveying the entire work life of the two former agents before him. "Listen, I see where you are going with this, but…maybe it's just me, but perhaps you should take a beat here. Stop working an angle and look at the story here."

"I am looking at the story."

"No, really look at what is going on." Moz rarely got so serious about anything. "This guy, this Mulder, he was a driven man, consumed with the desire to find the truth about his sister…just like someone else I know."

"I don't think aliens have Kate."

"No, but you do believe that there is a conspiracy that has her. And maybe there is, I don't know…or maybe the conspiracy is to entrap you."

"Come on, Mozzie, don't get started on this again, I know Kate, she's not playing me…"

"Whether she is or isn't, Neal, have you ever thought about what all this…this search for her, what it might do to you?"

"I'm not pissing off government authorities who want to see me dead."

"How do you know…Fowler looks like a government authority to me, overweight, smug, smarmy, dresses in really bad suits? The truth is Neal you could be Fox Mulder yourself. You're not that far removed, really, just give you a badge and a gun and you would be."

"I don't like guns." Neal found he didn't like this turn of conversation, rising restlessly and wandering towards the French windows overlooking his small balcony.

"I'm not kidding, Neal. Think about it. You are so consumed with finding out the truth about what happened to her, have you ever stopped to consider what that truth is and what it will do to you?" The argument wasn't new between them, but Neal had never heard Mozzie sound so serious about it before. He turned, regarding him quietly. There were few people in Neal's world he could call friend, and fewer still of those he could trust. Moz would be one of the only ones that he not only trusted but also knew cared about his well-being. "This Mulder guy, yeah sure, he can help you, probably has a lot of insight. But look at him? He spent all of his life chasing after phantoms, looking for a long-lost sister, and look what he lost because of it, what they both did. I'm just saying that maybe you can take a lesson here. This guy lost a lot…and it could be you someday if you aren't careful."

He was being careful, Neal wanted to snap, but he held his tongue. Had everything Moz described really happened to those two agents? Had Scully had to bury the partner she had fallen in love with? Did they have to give up a child, go on the run, hide away from a warrant on a man who dared to bring to light the secrets that someone, very likely the government he worked for? They had given everything and seemingly lost it for whatever it was they insisted on pursuing.

But Neal was different. He wasn't after government secrets, no aliens, no hidden plans, all he wanted to do was be with the woman he loved. All he needed to do was find the music box, give it to Fowler, and get Kate back. It was as simple as that. He would give up this life, the game, and the con, go straight, live a quiet life somewhere, with her, and he would do it in a heartbeat as long as he had her with him, safe.

"There's no way I would let that happen, Moz." Neal was positive of it, even if his friend was not. He met his dubiousness with a small smile. "Think you can find out any more about their experiences with OPR? Maybe its something I can ask them about. Maybe they know a thing or two about what Fowler could possibly be up to."

"At least pay attention to my warning, Neal. Think on whether this is all worth it."

"Sure Moz." It was all the reassurance he could give as he wandered outside to the balcony, if nothing else to escape Mozzie's reproving.


	10. Chapter 10

_FBI New York Field Office Headquarters_

_New York_

"Bridgeport Financial Group." Jones passed out crisp, manila dossiers to everyone at the table as he spoke, for once taking the lead in the morning meeting regarding the Whitmore case. "It's a boutique investment firm, only specializing in clients with a certain amount of capital. Most of their portfolio is high-end stock, and their rate of return is stable. It's not for the average Mom and Pop, middle class investor, Bridgeport prides itself on stable returns and careful investment choices. When everyone else was going under due to mortgage backed securities and other shady schemes, Bridgeport was turning over profits for their clients."

"And all three of our victims are tied to this place?" Peter already had scanned through the documents as Neal flipped through the numbers on this place. Bridgeport certainly seemed to luck out when others fell to pieces during the most recent economic downturn. Despite the fact that technically they were supposed to be researching the firm for a murder case, Neal couldn't help but analyze the investment numbers carefully. Interesting that the company had remained so solvent and viable without even taking a small fraction of a loss in the last two years.

"The Whitmore family invested with Bridgeport for years, Rachel Lidow and Christi MacNichols both were more recent investors. It's the only common link all three women had together."

"Was there a particular investment advisor they were using through Bridgeport?" Neal could practically see the wheels turning in Fox Mulder's brain as he quietly leafed through the report. Was he always this intense?

"As a matter of fact, there was." Jones clicked at the keyboard in front of him, pulling up a profile on the large projection screen at the end of the conference room. "Gentry Stephens, one of the top advisors with the firm, he's been there fifteen years." The digital photo of Stephens appeared to be a workplace headshot, the sort used in Bridgeport's marketing material. Early forties, attractive enough, a friendly smile, the type that didn't seem too over-the-top charming, coupled with his own likely wealth and productive career he seemed safe enough to not appear threatening to a woman in an equally powerful position.

"Was Stephens ever seen out with any of these three women?" Mulder murmured, studying the screen.

"Only once or twice. Stephens is married, has a house out in the Hamptons with his wife and three kids. Regular family man."

"I've seen family men do strange things," Mulder replied cryptically, turning back to Peter. "Is this the only connection we have?"

"The only one we've managed to turn up." Peter rose restlessly from his chair, wandering over to the projection of Stephen's information. "The women weren't in the same social circles let alone business circles. The only link that ties them is this investment firm."

It was a thin link, even Neal who knew nothing about a murder investigation could see that. But Peter had traced him on thinner links than this one. He glanced over at Mulder, still ruminating thoughtful. "Didn't you say that the last case, the Harvey case, what tied those women together was the fact he was an art purveyor?"

"Yeah. It was how he got an in with the victims, one way or the other they were connected to him through various artwork transactions."

"If we are dealing with a copycat here or whatever," Neal was at least diplomatic for the same of Mulder. "Than perhaps that is the same idea that our killer is using here. " Here Neal's own expertise was coming into play, and he felt more confident than trying to understand the particulars of a serial killers mind. "Artwork is more than a pretty object. For many people art is a sort of investment, a way to use their wealth effectively in the hopes of a high return. For many it's a safer sort of investment than stock, as the value of an artist's work tends to shift less drastically than that of shares in a company."

"So, what does that have to do with our killer," Peter drawled, his own quick mind turning over Neal's theory.

"I don't know, maybe nothing?"

"Or maybe something," Mulder tapped the table with a pen idyll, processing Neal's suggestion. "The profile for the last case was someone who wanted control, but not just in general. He chose specific women in powerful positions who were very exacting in their tastes and in their decisions. Investing that much money in anything, artwork, stocks, a company, unless the person was a complete idiot they would take an active role in the investment process. Our victims are women who are in high profile jobs, know their own mind, and aren't willing to meekly take no for an answer. Our killer is likely simultaneously attracted to and repulsed by such women."

"Which is why he seeks them out." Peter saw the picture coalescing as Neal did under Mulder's words. "The killer forms a bond with them, develops a relationship, cultivates it to a point, perhaps even imagines himself in love with these women for a time."

"That explains the poetry left at the crime scene." Neal snagged at the memory of the Keats poem found at Amanda Whitmore's murder, the very thing that linked the two cases together in the first place. "The killer thinks they are in love with these women."

"But the killer grows angry when the women don't fall into the traditional role of submissive lover, and the resentment causes them to lash out violently." Mulder nodded towards the picture of Stephen's on the wall in front of them. "Does Stephen's wife work?"

"No," Jones supplied, having been quietly listening. "She's a housewife, she has a few clubs she belongs to, her kids PTA, soccer teams, typical stuff."

"A traditional, feminine role." Peter smiled slowly, eyes narrowed, as if they had already caught their killer red handed.

"Could mean something…might not." Mulder sucked his bottom lip between his teeth, frowning unconvinced. "We have a profile, but that doesn't mean Stephens fits it."

"But he's a likely suspect," Peter insisted.

"Yeah," Mulder lazily in his notes, not sounding quite convinced. "Maybe."

"Do we have anyone better?" There was Peter's peevishness again, Neal was starting to become an expert at the many, dour moods of Agent Burke.

"Something doesn't feel right," Mulder shrugged blandly, continuing to doodle on his legal pad. "He's a likely candidate but…I don't know."

"He's the only one we have with access to all three women."

"I know." Mulder sighed, tossing the pen aside. "We need more data, more information."

Neal was out of his depth here, watching the former and current FBI agent work through the puzzle of this case. He was a con man, he could work his way through the maze of white collar crimes with ease and agility, nimbly stepping through a securities scam as easily as he managed to get past a high security system with a priceless jewel. Neal's world was populated with the greedy, the shady, the cagey, and the paranoid. They were rational human beings for the most part, people who wanted something somebody else had, drugs, money, priceless items. Murder happened, as it often did when greed was involved, but there was rationality to it. Remove an obstacle that is in the way of you having something. This wasn't that sort of crime. This wasn't murder as a means to an end, but to fulfill something within someone, a need, a hunger, and a desire. Much as one might desire money, or power, fame, an object, only this was a life. And that was the fine line in crime for Neal. It was one thing to want the rest of those things, but someone's life, that wasn't something he could wrap his mind around. Mulder clearly could, but Neal imagined that there was very little Mulder hadn't seen, and Peter likely had dealt with more than his fair share of murder cases coming up through the ranks of the FBI. But for Neal this left him unsettled and disturbed.

The rap on the conference rooms lacquered door made Neal jerk, his senses firing as it swung open, the bright head of Dr. Scully peaking inside. She glanced first at Peter for permission to come in, then smiled quietly at Mulder as she slipped beside him. "I had a chance to go over the autopsy reports on your victims and compare them to my original findings on the Harvey case years ago."

"How did they stack up," Peter came alert, obviously hoping there was something in the doctor's findings that would key them into something.

"The manner of death is similar, signs of torture before strangulation. Even the methodology behind the actual wounds suffered is the same. There was a pattern to the torture on all of the victims, and that remains consistent."

"So we have someone who really got into Harvey's work." Peter turned slightly green at the idea, and Neal couldn't blame him.

"Which is interesting considering the details of the case were never released to the public." Scully glanced at Mulder, some sort of knowing look passing between them that clearly said volumes between the two of them. "As expected with the latest victims, however, there are differences, minute ones. Mostly in how the attack was carried out, particularly the strangulation." Out of her file she pulled out two photographs, each of them glossy shots of pale skin scored and reddened with long lines that cut deeply into the tender flesh. "Note how the ligature marks here on one of the original victims pull up, under the hairline. This was consistent with all the victims in the first case, my best guess at the time was they were made to kneel as they were killed, the strangulation tool pulling upward as the murderer stood over them. The angle suggests that the killer had to be tall, 6'0 or better, in order to need that sort of leverage to choke his victims to death.

"And what about the new bodies." Peter stood and leaned across the dark table, studying each of the photographs with avid interest.

"The ligature marks hardly slop up at all, indicating that the murder is shorter, perhaps 5'6 to 5'9, less leverage needed. In addition, the depth and cut of the cord is deeper in the latest victims, indicating they simply tightened it by grasping the cord tight or by twisting, rather than an upwards pull, such as through hanging."

Neal marveled the doctor could so calmly speak to this, until he remembered she did this for a living. "So we are looking for a shorter man?"

"Likely, but its all guess work. There wasn't much else to go on, no fingerprints on the body, no saliva or semen, not even fiber. We are pretty much at a loss otherwise."

"No clues, one possible connection between all three, and no other leads outside of how tall the guy is." Peter growled in frustration, glaring up at the screen in front of them. He was frustrated, and it didn't take someone who knew him as well as Neal did to notice that. This wasn't Peter's expertise, serial killers, and he knew the agent was floundering slightly, stumbling at something he normally never failed at, understanding his victim. Except Peter usually tracked down sane, rational people for the most part, not crazies. That had been Mulder's specialty. And Neal wasn't surprised when Mulder spoke up.

"We need contact with Stephens."

"Contact?" Peter stopped just short of snorting at the other man. "How? On what grounds?"

"Not as the FBI. We don't know if he is a suspect, and we have no reason to think that at the moment, not without more information. We don't want to spook him into overreacting one way or the other."

"Undercover then," Scully murmured, glancing between the two men.

Undercover was something Peter knew well. "We could position someone in there with him, someone who could get to know him and speak to him, someone who can gain his trust."

Scully shook her head, mirroring the same reaction in Mulder. "If Stephens is our suspect, I doubt he trusts easily, if at all. The key is to get close to him without setting off alarm bells."

"A prospective client?" A slow smile spread across Peter's face as he turned towards Neal with an ideal clearly formulating that centered on his resident con man.

"Me," Neal frowned at Peter's now widening, mad grin. "Peter, I don't know the first thing about murder…serial killers…I'm a thief, a forger, a…"

"Man who could charm the underwear off a nun," Peter smirked, pulling up Agent Ponce's descriptive, religious line. "Are you telling me that Neal Caffrey of all people is afraid of a something as a simple undercover posing."

"I didn't say that," Neal snapped, knowing Peter was deliberately needling him to agree. "I'm just saying…what if he is our man?"

"Then your safe, you aren't his type."

"That's reassuring."

"Not really," Mulder spoke up, eyeing Neal speculatively as he leaned back in his chair, obviously not anymore of a fan of Peter's plan than Neal was. "Neal's got a point, he won't work. He isn't the killer's type."

"You don't know Neal, I've seen the most paranoid criminals trust him."

"We aren't dealing with a paranoid criminal, though, this is a different animal, and our killer, whether it is Stephens or not, looks for a certain type of prey." Mulder glanced over at the quiet Jones. "You have a partner…Cruz, right?"

"Lauren, yeah," Jones confirmed, glancing out of the glass doors of the room towards where she sat in the office.

"Send Lauren to Stephens as a wealthy potential client, create a background for her as a CEO or head of a company, something that like that, assertive, smart, intelligent."

"All the things she is anyway," Jones murmured, sticking up for his partner in absentia.

Peter wasn't thrilled with the idea. "Lauren's only ever dealt with white collar crimes, I don't want to send her into something like this, she's never seen a violent crimes case before."

"Then you can send Neal in with her," Mulder granted, smirking down to where Neal sat at the end of the table. "Charm the underwear off a nun?"

"Not that I've ever done it," Neal defended himself mildly. "So what am I supposed to do?"

"You're Lauren's well meaning, if slightly over-protective lawyer, looking to ensure she's not making a mistake in her investment." Mulder turned to Peter. "Lauren acts as decoy, keeps Stephens attention while you send Caffrey in to be the observer. My guess is that he'll pick up the things that your people will miss, right?"

"That's what we keep him around for, ostensibly," Peter muttered, considering Mulder's suggestion. "If Stephens is our target, Cruz could be…"

"Keep a detail on her till you solve the case, she should be fine. Besides hopefully we'll have the information we need to determine if there is any reason to suspect him or not."

"And if we don't?"

"Peter," Neal cut in smoothly, knowing the agent would worry this to death unless prodded to take the chance. "Lauren's trained FBI, she'll be fine. And we need more than what we got here. If she has him occupied, I can get in there, see what information I can pull from his files, and be back without anyone the wiser."

Neal knew he could do it. He wasn't thrilled with the idea of it, but he knew he could get what they wanted. Peter knew that too, which was why he slowly nodded in assent, not happy with the idea, but acknowledging Mulder's point, they needed more data. "Right. Jones I want you to fill Lauren in on what we know, the two of you start working up a background together. Caffrey, I want you to go over it with them when they are done, make sure there are no holes in it whatsoever."

"Right." At least Neal was good for something with this case.

"As for you two," Peter eyed the two former agents sharply, pausing. Like Neal they were there as consultants, with really no other further purpose on the case than to give their opinions and insight. Even though they both had FBI training, certainly more than Neal had when dealing with bad guys, Neal could hardly imagine Peter would have them anywhere near the crux of the action.

"As much as I hate doing this, I really don't have a choice in the matter." His breath fleeing him dramatically, Peter's face reddened as he carefully avoided Neal's speculation. "I've been asked to…invite you both to dinner tonight."

Whatever Mulder and Scully had thought Peter was going to say, clearly it wasn't that. Frankly it wasn't what Neal had thought he would say either. Suspicion came to the fore with Mulder, staring at Peter as if had suddenly admitted he was an alien, while Scully stuttered beside him, surprised out of her normal eloquence. "D…dinner?"

"Yes," Peter coughed, chocking on his own embarrassment and discomfort, now blatantly ignoring Neal's grin. "My wife, Elle….Elizabeth, she owns an event planning business, and well, she gets into this cooking….food…thing." Why was it that when Peter was asked to relate to people as a normal human being and not as Agent Burke he totally and completely failed? "Anyway, you know how wives are sometimes, I discussed you both with her, she thought you two might like something other than hotel food for a change, and since you had so kindly agreed to help the FBI…you know."

Dinner with Spooky Mulder at his house, Neal couldn't imagine a more perfect torture for Peter. "You should try Elle's cooking, it's amazing."

Peter shot Neal a look that made it clear that he was no help.

"Well…uh…" Scully looked helpless as to how to respond, her blue eyes wide as she stumbled on social niceties.

"How's her pot roast," Mulder piped up hopefully as under the table there as a clear thump and a jerk from his partner. He grimaced, pained, but made no sound.

"It's chicken…something French, I don't know." Peter waved it off as he busied himself gathering things. "It would make Elle happy if you came, dinner's at seven. I can have someone come get you from the hotel." He tried to give the still stunned couple a warm, friendly smile. It came out as more of a tortured frown. "So, I'll see you then?"

They gave vague nods as Peter shuffled out towards the door, ears burning. Neal only waited half a second to consider if he should follow, making a hasty farewell as he too gathered his things and ran after Peter, rounding the corner to the agent's office.

"Dinner, Peter? You agreed to that?" Neal gleefully watched Peter groan as he flopped into his chair.

"Elle couldn't be swayed, she heard their story, the fact we had begged them back, that they were here as a favor…."

"You told Elle you had a crush on Dr. Scully at Quantico, didn't you? And now she wants to meet this mysterious woman."

"Maybe it came out," Peter muttered, flipping on his computer. "Look, I'm humoring my wife and her need to take care of people, nothing more."

"Is she in the habit of inviting consultants over for dinner? And how come she's never invited me?"

"Because you invite yourself," Peter groused, flicking through his email briefly. "No, she's not in the habit. Perhaps I got a bit…carried away with my stories about Spooky Mulder."

"And she wants to see what an FBI crank job looks like? Why, she afraid you'll turn into one."

"No, she thinks I'll insult them horribly and give them the wrong impression about me."

"She's not wrong about that, you know."

Peter was not amused. "Don't think I'm going to sit through a dinner with Spooky Mulder and his aliens alone. She's invited you too."

"Oh, I finally get my invite, well that's nice."

"Don't think this is a permanent thing, Caffrey. I need backup in case I have to field conversations on conspiracies and Area 51."

"You know, Mulder's been here two days and hasn't brought that up once."

"He's biding his time."

"Maybe's Elle's right, Peter, I think you're judging the guy a bit too harshly." Especially, Neal thought grimly, after he had seen Mulder and Scully's files, the things they had seen, and everything they went through. "Remember that every story has some little grain of truth inside of it."

"What, now you are going to chase Bigfoot too?"

"Only to pull the con of the century with it." Neal flashed a cheeky grin. Peter scowled harder. "What, come on, look all I'm saying is that you don't know Mulder. Talk to him and Dr. Scully over dinner, get to know him. You might be surprised how decent of a guy he really is."

"And if he starts pulling out Art Bell crap?"

"Turn on the Knicks game, I'm sure that's something the two of you can bond over." Neal grinned broadly as he made for the office door. "Seven o'clock, I'll bring the wine."


	11. Chapter 11

Peter shouldn't have worried that Fox Mulder wouldn't be on his best behavior while over for dinner. He should have been much more worried about his own wife.

"So Peter tells me you two used to work cases on the paranormal?" Elizabeth smiled brightly at the pair across the table, as if the paranormal were a completely normal division of the FBI. Neal just did manage not to choke on the Sauvignon Blanc Semillon he had brought for dinner, swallowing the golden liquid without embarrassing himself. Peter on the other hand snorted and spluttered into his wine glass, staring at his wife's knowing smile as if she had just begun speaking in tongues.

If either Mulder or Scully was bothered by Elizabeth's frankness neither showed it. Mulder in fact seemed vaguely amused, a glitter of cautious respect sparkling briefly in his hazel eyes. "I don't know about paranormal, Mrs. Burke, but I'm pretty killer with a pack of tarot cards."

He ignored Scully's blue eyes cutting sharply at him, though Neal could see hidden smirk lying just at the corners of Mulder's perfectly serious mouth. He was doing it to annoy Peter, yes, but more so he was doing it to tease Scully. And she knew it, he could tell by the brief roll of the eyes before she turned apologetically towards Elizabeth slapping on a smile with the force of long habit.

"You'll have to excuse my partner, Mrs. Burke…"

"Elizabeth," she waved off the formality of the two former agents as well as Mulder's flippancy, shooting Peter's still flabbergasted expression a wide grin. "Peter's told me too much about you two for us to stand on formality."

Neal rarely….check that never got to see Peter sitting on the edge of the hot seat, squirming quite as much as he was in that moment. Personally he wished Elle would come by the office more often. "Why Peter, I do believe you're blushing."

"Can it, Caffrey," he muttered around a forkful of glazed carrots, busying himself suddenly with the food in front of him. "Great dinner, Elle, its…good…chicken…stuff."

"It's lemon roasted chicken, Provencal style," Neal murmured back quietly. Peter studiously ignored him.

Neal could well imagine the sort of stories Elizabeth had heard on the infamous pair, and he knew the two of them were thinking the same thing. "You know I was reading up on some of your old cases myself." Why not jump in with both feet, he thought as Peter's surprise now shifted from his wife to Neal with suspicious wariness. "There were some crazy cases the two of you managed….did you really find a mutant fluke worm in the sewers of New Jersey?"

"A fluke worm?" Elle wrinkled her nose in fascinated disgust, like a child who had just turned over a rock and found pale, white things under it she wanted to poke with sticks. "Like a giant one?"

"No, like a walking one." Mulder took the bait with subdued gleefulness. "It was less of a worm and more of a man really."

"No," Elle's blue-gray eyes widened on her pretty face, sparkling over a disbelieving grin, flickering to the clearly less-than-thrilled Scully for confirmation of Mulder's assertions.

"We don't know for sure what it was, the creature escaped, if you recall, before any testing could be done."

"You said it yourself it was a mutant, Scully." Mulder replied glibly, hardly bothered by his partner's scientific rapprochement. "We had doctors looking at it at the time we captured it, it was clearly bipedal, with a complex development similar to homosapiens, not the simple fluke worm creature that you pulled out of that sewer worker."

"Gosh, this dinner is tasty," Peter cut in loudly, voice strained, as he tried to manage a polite smile while shooting both his wife and Neal dark looks over his wine glass. "Just…so darn good, Elle, would really hate to be put off of it."

Scully raised a smirking eyebrow at Mulder who laughed at her response as he dug into his own plate. "Your husband's right, Elizabeth, your cooking is delicious."

"Thanks," she replied, holding up the wine glass. "I can't take credit for this, that's Neal. He's got impeccable taste in wine. Frankly I'd hire him on to consult for me if Peter would let me get away with it."

"If the FBI trusted you enough to make him behave himself for the next four-ish years, I'd foist him on you," Peter hardly bothered looking up from his plate.

"I'm so touched by your loyalty, Peter, really I am." Neal was used to Peter's disgruntlement, and really he knew the poor guy was trying. He wasn't comfortable with this, a fancy dinner in his own home with a man he considered only two steps removed from a total crackpot. But he also wasn't giving Fox Mulder much credit either. Strange, Neal thought as he considered the unique relationship he had with the man. Peter had no problem putting his faith and trust in one Neal Caffrey, known con-artist, forger, and thief, and yet a former fellow agent had him behaving like a petulant schoolboy when the other wasn't looking.

Wherever Neal's thoughts were meandering, Dr. Scully cut in, her soft alto chiming in from her end of the dark table. "You're a connoisseur of wines, Mr. Caffrey?"

"Among other things." Neal flashed the million-dollar smile pridefully. "Wines, art, jewels, a good puzzle."

"That's what it comes down to though, doesn't it?" Mulder asserted conversationally. "The puzzle…the challenge…seeing how far you can take things and get away with it." He glanced up at Neal thoughtfully, watching him intently, as if looking through him, scanning him, picking through the crevices of Neal's brain, banging through the hidden areas that he kept well locked, before shrugging and turning back to his plate again. Neal felt his smile slip and falter the intensity slid away, leaving his mouth dry and feeling as if he'd just been probed in the most uncomfortable of ways.

"I suppose," Neal replied evenly, shrugging.

"The Copenhagen incident…still amazed with that one." Mulder continued. "By all rights you shouldn't have gotten out of that."

"Well, I'm not a big rules follower," Neal evaded, feeling the heat of the sudden spotlight himself, knowing that somehow Peter was enjoying this just as much as Neal enjoyed his earlier discomfort. "I tend to like life outside of expectations."

"I get that," Mulder replied in the same, conversational manner he had so far. But there was a depth to his words Neal noticed, a certain world-weariness. Seeing Mulder's files, Neal was hardly surprised. But there was something else…kinship perhaps. Someone who understood what it was to be Neal, not just because it was what he did but because he felt that way too.

Fox Mulder knew what it was to be on the outside standing in and looking at the world and seeing exactly how it worked. He could see the ways the people operated, the subtle gestures, the hints, the patterns in behavior and thought, just as Neal could. But there was something else. He'd seen things, dark things, the same things that Neal saw in Scully's eyes when he'd met her. Neal thought on their files, on Mozzie's words. They really did have so much in common.

Peter's observations must have been wandering somewhere dangerously close to Neal's own. "You seem to understand Neal here fairly well." The double meaning in his words wasn't lost on Neal, who frowned at Peter's nonchalant shrug.

"Six years at Oxford and thirteen in the FBI, they once paid me the big bucks to do that." Mulder shrugged as he glanced at Scully. "We made a good team back in the day, I'd get in their heads, she'd get in their bodies, between the two of us we'd figure it out."

"You make it sound like some cliché crime procedural on TV," Scully groaned. "I wasn't a bad profiler myself, thank you, or a bad investigator."

"I was horrible around a dead body."

"That was true," she admitted, eyes shinning, a host shared memories and thoughts passing between them in that instant. Neal knew that feeling and look well. He'd shared it with Kate how many times? Up until she walked into that prison and told him it was over.

"You two are amazing, you know," Elle sighed with that sort of noise women seemed to make over romantic movies and puppy dogs. It caught both of the former agents off guard as they turned to her blinking blankly. "You are just so…right together."

"Right?" Scully echoed in bemusement, as if she hadn't ever heard the word used before.

"I'm guessing she's saying we are a cute couple." Mulder looked completely amused by the phrase, reaching an arm around the petite, red heads waist. "Like two sleepy kittens…"

"I will hurt you." In a flash the careful, cool, calculated Dr. Scully was gone, replaced by a woman who vaguely frightened Neal for a moment, but hardly made Mulder flinch. He looked far too delighted with himself.

"See, there you are," Elizabeth crowed in triumph, looking towards Peter for support and finding none from her husband. "Oh come on, Peter, they are a cute couple."

"Elizabeth, I love you, but this sounds dangerously like women's talk." And far out of Peter's league. Neal could sense he was mentally calculating how much longer he would have to stay to be polite before excusing himself to fire up the Knicks game on television and escape from all of this.

"Fine." Unrelenting Elle turned to Neal for backup, a dark eyebrow quirked in challenge. "What about you, Neal, what do you think?" There was an implicit dare in those words, an implication against her estimation of him if Neal were to wiggle out of this like her husband. Already he could see Peter gloating.

"Well," Neal cleared his throat, setting down his fork to lean back and study the couple quietly for a long, admittedly unnecessary and completely over-dramatic moment. It was interesting watching the two of them, the tall and dark Mulder, the acerbic indolence masking a frightening intensity and a mass of energy just barely held in check next to the small, Titian-haired Scully with her cool, unflappable exterior covering what Neal surmised was a core of iron will and razor sharp intellect all her own. As far as two partners in the FBI went you couldn't get two more compatibility personalities for all of Mulder belief in aliens and Scully's skepticism. Somehow he thought they really were just two sides of the same coin when it came down to it.

"I have to say Elle's got a point," Neal finally drawled slowly, long fingers wrapping around the delicate stem, twirling the cool glass between his thumb and forefinger. Mulder and Scully both watched him expectantly, with the same, identical united front of cautious curiosity. Did they even realize they did that, he wondered.

"I don't know if I'd use the word 'cute' though," he clarified. Elizabeth's term hardly worked with these two. "You certainly fit."

"Fit?" That term amused Scully, mischievousness sparkling playful to the surface, only to be swallowed, barely. Surprise, surprise, Neal thought, Dr. Scully did let the playful side out when comfortable enough to do so.

"Yes, fit." Neal shrugged, meeting the other woman's shining eyes as he leaned forward. "You two match. Many couples are comfortable together, many are….cute." He hated that word personally, but he thought it did apply to Peter and Elizabeth well. "And there are those who fit, people who belong together. They balance." As if adding emphasis he set his fork along the edge of his plate carefully, perfectly balancing it between top and bottom.

"From what I can tell Mulder is insightful, passionate, brilliant, but he's like myself, someone who tends to like to walk that fine, dangerous line of expectation." He caught Mulder's ever so imperceptible smile. "His ability to look beyond what is expected gives insights no one else dares to even think about. While you, Dr. Scully are different. You are more calm, strategic, methodical, seeing the things he misses in his direct line insight. Not that I've seen much of your work, but I can guess you like to see every possibility, weigh its options, and decide which of them fits the variables given. I've not seen you two work together but guessing from what I've seen of you separately, my guess is that when you two were partners you played well off one another, Mulder would see the patterns you didn't while you were the one who was able to explain why they made sense. Perhaps for any other two people these opposites would have clashed, grated against one another, but for you two it worked."

"He's good," Mulder laughed outright, impressed. For some inane reason that pleased Neal greatly, the approval from someone with the talent of Fox Mulder, "You probably wouldn't have been bad in this profiling business."

"Pity he had to use it on the other side of the law, isn't it?" Peter agreed ruefully.

"I won't deny he's got us pegged," Scully arched one coppery eyebrow up at Neal, not nearly as forthcoming with her praise. "But anyone who's checked with Bureau scuttlebutt would likely gather that much on us, especially if they've had a chance to go through our personnel files."

"That's true," Neal acknowledged. "But it's the little things with you two as well, things I don't think you are even aware of. If the two of you are alone in a room together one of you is always in eye contact with the other. No speaking, but you gravitate to one another." The way Mulder would hover over Scully, or the way she would slide beside him no matter how many other chairs were in the room. "There's the touches, the glances, the way you two speak without saying a word." The trust he wanted to say. There was an infinite amount of it between these two people; there wasn't a hint of a doubt between them. Not even he and Kate had that, Neal realized with something of a minor pang.

He pushed the traitorous thought aside as he met the good doctor's challenge. "You two like to think you two are as different as night and day, but really you're very much the same. You come from different angles, but you're at the same place. Not even one in a billion couples have that sort of connection."

It was enough to make most anyone jealous, your perfect other. Neal couldn't say in that moment he wasn't. No matter how hard he fought to find the truth, no matter how convinced he was that he was on the right course with Kate, there was still that niggling doubt in the back of his mind, the one that Peter and Mozzie had put there. Did Mulder ever once have that doubt about Scully?

"See, you are right together," Elizabeth echoed softly. "As put eloquently by Mr. Cafferey." She held up her wine glass in mock tribute. "I have to say your romance makes ours look dull and fusty." She prodded Peter affectionately with mock distress. "All I got was a stake out and a mumbled invitation to dinner."

"I tried to ask her out for dinner on stake outs, but she always quoted rules and regulations at me," Mulder feigned looking hurt. "It took me seven years to convince her I was civil enough to have dinner with."

"Can you blame me for wondering when your highest form of cuisine was pizza with sausage and mushrooms on it." Scully dripped saccharine. "Besides, we were partners, and one of us at least always remembered the rules and regulations."

"But you are partners now," Elizabeth broke in with the most obvious point. "You aren't married yet?"

It was an innocent enough question, and probably not the first time that either of them had heard it judging from the flush on Scully's pale cheeks and the wry exasperation from Mulder. "That's been a topic of some debate for a while."

"And we'll keep on debating," Scully murmured into her wine glass she suddenly found herself busy with.

"You are both retired, no more FBI regulations, settle, start a family…" Elizabeth, well meaning, kind-hearted Elle had no idea what a minefield she had stepped into with her words. Neal couldn't even see it coming to divert it as the words landed on the couple with all of the surprises of an oncoming missal attack. Mulder's smile dissolved instantly into a stoic blankness as he reached automatically for the woman by his side. Neal's heart ached to see the stricken look on her face, the fear and hurt he'd seen since meeting the woman surfacing for the briefest of moments, raw and real.

Elizabeth's brightness dimmed in an instant. "I'm sorry…I…" She faltered; realizing something she said was amiss. Elizabeth rarely if ever made _faux paux's_ of any sort, her career demanded she always be on top of any of her clients' demands. But she had no way of knowing this, not even Peter did, as ever perceptive he too sensed the shift in mood.

Neal had always prided himself for being quick on his feet when the social situations reached their stickiest, it was how he survived, how he stayed alive sometimes, but certainly how he kept several steps before anyone else. "So Elizabeth!" Turn on the charm; let her know everything's all right. "I heard you got a Viennese Chocolate Torte from French bakery I like so much!"

Desert….it was the last thing on any of their minds judging from the blank stares at him. Not the first time Neal had experienced it. But Peter was the first to pick up on where he was going, grabbing the thread and running with it. "Yeah, cake and coffee…"

"And the Knicks," Neal suggested, much to Peter's relief.

"Right, games on now, playing the Celtics." On came the pleading look for Elizabeth, the one that said that Peter had been good and patient this far, please couldn't he go now and enjoy himself? For Elle's sake, and for that of Mulder and Scully, Neal hoped she would agree.

"All right," Elle sighed, recovering somewhat from her still as yet unknown transgression, indulgently giving in to her husband. "I'm surprised I was able to hold you this long."

"That's because the game didn't start till eight and I had the DVR set up." He nearly leapt up at Elizabeth's release, but paused at Neal's silent urging. Neal let his gaze flicker to Mulder, still concerned by Scully's side, and back to the FBI agent. Perhaps he and Peter weren't Mulder and Scully, that wasn't to say he couldn't get his point across to him perfectly clear. The question was would Peter go along with it.

The other man wavered, clearly hoping to spend some quality time alone with his beloved television while his guests were entertained elsewhere. But wisdom prevailed, or at least Peter's sense of fairness as he nodded, rising finally and rounding the table to clap a hand on Mulder's shoulder.

"Much into basketball, Mulder?"

The friendly gesture caught the other man off guard slightly, and Neal could sense the surprise and caution as he answer. "Only on days that end in 'y'."

"Really?" Why did Peter sound so surprised by that. "You much into the Knicks?"

"I still have my Bill Bradley jersey from when I was a kid."

Somehow Neal had suspected there would be a common ground in sports between the two of them. "You can show off your new equipment, you know. Impress with your state of the art sound system."

"It is pretty awesome," Peter mused with pride. "Come on, Mulder, you'll be amazed with the picture quality I get on this thing."

Mulder hesitated for only the briefest of moments, Scully's nod and consenting chuckle all the reassurance he needed to follow Peter over to the mammoth television set up as Peter began his now well rehearsed and highly informed demonstration of the high end equipment he had been dying for months to show off to people in the office.

"Don't worry, Peter's recording the game, they aren't missing anything," Elizabeth eyed her husband's childlike glee. "Neal and I have seen his new playthings already."

"Men and their toys," Scully replied, still finding her footing with a nervous glance at Elizabeth. "I'm sorry about that just now, you just…"

"No, I'm sorry," Elizabeth stopped the other woman, face softening for an instant. "Look, I know every relationship is different, and I got carried away. If I brought something painful for you two, I'm sorry. You're guests here tonight. You are helping my husband out a great deal, the two of you didn't have to do this. I just wanted to say thank you."

It was hard to remain hurt under Elizabeth's earnest apology, Neal should know. "Thank you," Scully murmured gratefully, glancing at the scattered plates. "Coffee then? I could use some."

"I'll help," Neal offered, reaching immediately for empty plates, hoping it was as good of an excuse as any to avoid hearing Peter's presentation on his sound system yet again.

"I think I have this covered, Neal," Elle saw through his plan easily enough, foiling it effectively to Neal's disappointment. "Go out with the boys, enjoy the game."

"Enjoy the game?" Elizabeth knew perfectly well that he cared about as much for sports as Peter did for the symphony, opera, ballet, anything involving culture really. "How long have we known each other?"

"Personally or including the time I had to give up anniversaries and birthdays while my husband was tracking you down for arrest?" Elizabeth knew how to cut to the quick. She had him.

"Fine," Neal knew he was beaten. The womenfolk wanted him out, or at least Elle did, and so he retreated from the safe haven of the dining room to the unfamiliar territory of Peter's world. One in which the quality of the man was judged by the size of his big screen television.

Peter was already pointing out buttons and explaining the nifty things that they did. "This one gives me full on, surround sound through the entire downstairs, so no matter if I go into the kitchen for a beer I can still know what's going on.

It was unclear if Mulder was completely impressed or not. "You've got a very tolerant wife."

"Well she agreed to it only as long as I didn't scare the neighbors or get the police called on us." Peter sighed. "It's funny, she probably wouldn't have even agreed to that if things hadn't…gotten complicated at work." And by that Neal knew he meant Garret Fowler bugging everything Peter had in sight in his own home. It was the opportunity Neal had been hoping for all evening, a way to segue into the very business he had wanted to discuss with Mulder since he was brought on board, but Peter unsurprisingly sidestepped it, suddenly became very busy with the business of turning on his expensive sound system. He didn't trust Mulder; the laughing stock of the FBI with the one thing Mulder should an expert at.

So Neal would step in.

"So, Mulder…you played basketball?" The room was suddenly filled with the white noise whisper of thousands of fans cheering in a confined area as the television screen came to life.

Mulder was immediately attracted to it, but answer Neal promptly enough. "Yeah, high school though. Oxford doesn't really have organized, university wide sports like they do here in America."

"Was never good at sports myself….all those rules and regulations." Hit on the one area they did have in common, Neal thought. "Tends to get me in trouble, you know, that pervasive need to do exactly what the authority figures tell me not to do."

"As well I should know," Peter settled happily on the couch, remote in hand

"Poor Peter, he gets the brunt end of it," Neal conceded, glancing at the other man thoughtfully. "Though, really, he should be thanking me for the sound system."

"How so," Peter frowned up at Neal, but he knew where Neal was going with this. And he wasn't happy.

"I'm the reason OPR started bugging your house." Neal bullied his way through, ignoring Peter's silent protests. "And if they hadn't been listening through your cable box…"

"Yeah, well all done now, can we watch the basketball game," Peter did not want to get into this now.

"You had your fair share of run ins with OPR, didn't you Mulder?" If Neal could be any more obvious he didn't know how. The other man knew it too.

"A few," Mulder acknowledged carefully just as he did about everything. Had there ever been a time he didn't dance around subjects as if they were on fire?

"Perhaps you could give me some insight then." Might as well go for broke, Neal thought. "This OPR agent, Garret Fowler, is he someone you remember from your days with the Bureau?"

Mulder looked thoughtful for long moments, searching his memory as he settled on the couch beside Peter. "Not that I recall, though I didn't know every OPR agent by name. They just liked to be a pain in my ass whenever the Justice Department got pissy with me about something else new they could bitch about."

"Like what?" Neal was prying but he didn't care.

"Usually me pissing off the Attorney General." Mulder didn't look in the least bit sorry. "Janet Reno didn't like me very much."

"But did they go so far as to bug your house?"

"A couple of times," Mulder shrugged, as if this was a normal occurrence for him. Perhaps it was. "It wasn't always OPR, but it happened, my office, my apartment, Scully's apartment, phone lines, they were all bugged at one point or the other."

"Why?" This was Peter's interjection, finally getting involved in the conversation he had been trying to avoid with basketball. It had been Peter who'd received the brunt of Fowler's intrusion, Neal as a consultant wasn't nearly as interesting to him for whatever reason. For whatever reason everything seemed to hinge on Peter's involvement in this, and neither of them could tell why.

"I thought that would be obvious." Mulder didn't shy away from what he used to do. "I managed to piss a lot of people off before, Agent Burke, asking questions people weren't exactly thrilled with me asking. I was bringing up truths people didn't want known about." 

"Secrets about what the government did and didn't know about aliens?" Neal might as well call a spade a spade, and if he left it to Peter someone would get insulted quickly.

"Some might say that." Mulder wasn't going to openly admit to anything, not anymore at least, not to two people he'd hardly known two days. Trust clearly wasn't something you gained easily from him. "I somehow don't think that this has anything to do with your problem though."

"We don't know what our problem is," Peter muttered lowly, all hope for his basketball game lost for the moment. He paused the action as he glared at Neal. "All we know is that Fowler wants Neal for something."

"A rare music box," Neal supplied.

"What any of this has to do with anything is still eluding us," Peter clarified.

"OPR often has its own agenda, it could be anything. Though I've never heard of anyone caring about a music box before. What's special about it?"

"We don't know?" Peter replied, though he didn't look totally convinced that Neal didn't know. "It's from the 18th century, Russian, owned by Catherine the Great. The value of it could be incalculable."

"Money is money in this world, Burke, you and I know that. There are people who play for things more than dollars and cents." Mulder sank further into the couch cushions. "If someone from OPR is involved this deep it isn't just about money."

"Than what is it?" Neal couldn't get past that part, the idea of who would want an expensive, rare, and valuable art object for anything other than money?

"That's the part you'll have to find out. Likely from Fowler."

Peter snorted. "And you made a habit of shaking down powerful members of the Justice Department, Mulder?"

But Neal knew he had, at least a few times. He'd read through the man's files. "There was that time years ago. You were involved in an investigation of your Section Chief, weren't you? He was involved in some sort of pharmaceutical program doing illegal testing, and he was using the FBI to help cover it up?"

He'd surprised Mulder. For whatever reason, this pleased Neal greatly, the other man didn't look like he surprised easily. "Perceptive and observant," Mulder nodded in approval. "And someone's got a hold of a file I didn't think the FBI let out to just anyone."

"I didn't either," Peter echoed suspiciously, eyes narrowing on Neal who only shrugged affably to the agent, knowing Peter would figure out easily enough just how Neal had gotten his hands on the files anyway.

"I like paying attention to the details. It's what makes me so good." He wasn't going to shy away from the facts as they were. "And I figured I needed to know a lot about you."

For the briefest of moments that intensity returned, that habit the other man had of staring at you as if he was reading your soul or scouring your brain. It was unnerving to Neal, despite his bravado, and it made him want to somehow move from Mulder's line of vision, hide in the kitchen, something to get away from it. But then it was gone as quickly as it returned, and Mulder nodded in satisfaction, apparently pleased with whatever he found. Neal wasn't so sure he liked Mulder finding anything at all.

"Whatever it is this Fowler wants out of the two of you, it's not about him." Mulder returned to their previous thread of conversation. "Nothing like this is ever as simple as that, there is always a string leading back to someone else pulling it. The question should be not why this Fowler person wants the box or what's important about it, but who else wants it and why."

"And before you say that Spooky Mulder has pulled out another cracked theory," Mulder hedged to the guilty glances of both Neal and Peter. "I'm not just speaking out of my conspiratorial ass here. The FBI and OPR are both like every other organization in this government. Someone is always working for someone else's agenda, often when they don't even realize it. Take this case for example. When was the last time you worked a murder investigation, Burke?"

"That didn't relate to a white collar crime?" Peter paused in thought, frowning. "Close to a decade."

"Ever deal with a serial killer before?"

"Not since right after I got out of the academy, no."

"And yet Violent Crimes comes to you with this case, one that they claim they can't figure out with their scores of highly trained profilers, and tell you that not only do they need the insights of your consultant but that of a man who got drummed out of the Bureau as a whack job disgrace?"

Now that Mulder put it that way it brought into sharp relief the questions Neal had been asking since they had been put on this case…why? "They said it was because it dealt with white collar's expertise."

"But it isn't a white collar crime. I know, they had me on that detail for a while; you track down mob lords, art thieves, securities fraud. This is a serial killer, and to get into the mind of someone like this you need to have the experience."

"So you're saying someone is setting us up?" For once Peter wasn't dismissive of Mulder's theory. In fact he looked as if it made a scary sort of sense.

"I think someone is looking for a reason for you two to mess up." Mulder replied. "The angry Senator, the white collar connection, those are just excuses really. Someone out there wants to get their hands on something, and my guess is that it isn't a music box." He looked back squarely at Neal.

"You are both under scrutiny here, and someone is simply waiting for one screw up, one misstep."

"But why me," Neal sputtered as both of the other men focused sharply on him. "I've been out of the game for years now."

"I don't know, Neal," Peter sighed softly, thoughtful. "You've managed to piss off far too many people in your past."

"Enough to create an elaborate plot to try and get me? To do what?"

"I don't know," Mulder shrugged. "But I've heard of grander conspiracies to entrap other people for less than that."

Somehow that didn't make Neal feel any better.


	12. Chapter 12

"Are those Louboutins?" Lauren Cruz's practically squealed as she made a grab for one of the signature, designer black shoes, the patented red leather souls winking as she held them up for inspection.

"They are on loan, Cruz, you don't get to keep them." Peter's warning went unheeded by the younger agent, who quickly kicked off her own serviceable pumps and slipped on the thousand dollar pair.

"I always wanted a pair of these," she sighed wistfully, earning a snort from Jones.

"And you can keep wishing, for the price those things cost."

"How do you loan a pair of shoes," Lauren frowned down as she teetered dangerously on the stiletto heels.

"I know a friend who was willing to help out," Neal shrugged, turning all eyes in the room curiously to him. "They are real Louboutins, don't worry, nothing illegal here."

"What is with women and shoes," Peter grumbled from the end of the conference room, staring in mystified disbelief at how one of his most promising agents turned into a pile of girlie goo the minute a pair of high heels was brought into the room.

"Scully is the same way," Mulder muttered from where he sat next to Neal, watching the scene in mile amusement. "We went under cover as a married couple once, you would not believe the amount of shoes she 'requisitioned' for that case."

"How many did she try to keep," Peter asked.

"Five pairs, though she gave back all but two. She claimed one of them had been ruined beyond repair. I saw her wearing them to work the next week."

"You won't have that sort of luck, Lauren," Peter called as the younger woman pouted slightly. "Honestly, over a thousand dollars for a pair of shoes that look as if they'd break if you pushed the woman over?"

"Do you know the craftsmanship that goes into those shoes?" Not that Neal did either, but the opportunity to tweak Peter was too great.

"It's a piece of cow hide on a stick, Neal, how special can it be," Peter ignored Neal's mocking as he passed separate files to Lauren and Neal. "These are your covers. Lauren, you are Olivia Polanco, daughter of a wealthy, Mexican oil magnate. You were raised in New York, BA Yale, MBA Harvard. You've been involved in your father's company since you were just out of school, but with his recent death you have inherited a majority stake. You are now looking for opportunities to grow your personal capital in light of you recent acquisition, and you heard good things about Bridgeport."

"Right," Lauren's enthusiasm about the shoes finally gave way to a focus on the file in front of her. "How much economic babble do I need to know here?"

"Jones can help you out with enough to get you through the basics." Peter's attention turned to Neal. "You're her lawyer, worked as her father's personal advisor, and have been charged with overseeing the transfer of acquisitions to Olivia."

Neal glanced through the basic profile, nodding carefully. "I'm the suspicious outsider?"

"You need to be politely dubious," Mulder cut in. He was twiddling a pencil between long fingers as he leaned back in his chair. "The MO for all of these murders is that these are women with sound business sense and a mind all of their own, willing to take advice but ultimately do what they want. We need to create the impression for Stephens that Olivia Polanco is one of these sorts of women."

"And while Olivia and Stephens are having a frank discussion one-on-one, that frees you up to take a peek around his operation and see if you find anything useful." Peter tossed a thumb drive to Neal. "Make sure to see if he has an address book, calendar, anything that can tie him to the other three women."

"Right," Neal nodded, pocketing the thumb drive as he glanced towards Lauren. "So, Olivia, ready to put on your pretty shoes and mount your pumpkin coach?"

Lauren smiled widely to Peter as she held up one, designer shoe clad foot. "As long as the rest of the outfit matches these, I am."

"Do you know how much I would kill to have one of these in real life?" Lauren sighed as she slid into the Mercedes, the soft, butter smooth leather whispering against the silken fabric of her dress as she carefully drew in the Louboutins on her feet.

"A girl of expensive tastes, Ms. Polanco," Neal teased, starting the car with a revving sound that earned a laugh out of Lauren. "Not the nicest car I've ever driven, but it's not so bad."

"Not so bad," Lauren snorted, shaking her now perfectly made up hair.

"It's a perfectly acceptable car for a lawyer who is taking his client to a meeting with a financial advisor," Peter growled, leaning in the window over Neal's head. He glowered down at Neal's winning smile. "Why is it he's the one driving?"

"Four inch heels, Peter, can't drive in these," Lauren explained simply.

"And you couldn't take them off till you got there?"

"What and have the world see Olivia Polanco running around barefoot?" Lauren's scandalized tone only earned an eye roll out of her boss.

"Be careful with this thing, its still FBI property. One scratch on it…"

"Peter, you act as if I've never driven a car before." Neal affected hurt. Peter was unimpressed.

"You're scheduled for an hour with Gentry Stephens. His personal assistant, Rita Ford, is something of a dragon on this fact. Make the most of it. Get there on time, engage him in conversation, fifteen minutes in I'll ring Neal's cell. He'll step out to take the call, and while he's out, you keep Stephens occupied, Lauren, while Neal, you case his office." The plan was amazing in its simplicity. And yet Neal know better than anyone that it was often the most simple plans that often went awry first.

"Neal, you'll have about twenty minutes, give or take. Find what you can quickly. Get back to Lauren, finish off the meeting, and get out of there. Don't do or leave anything that can make them suspicious."

"I know, Peter," Neal muttered with more annoyance than he needed. Peter was hovering unnecessarily on this case. "Hardly my first rodeo, now is it?"

"No, but it's Lauren's, and I'm not about to have you become a maverick and let one of my agents get hurt." Peter's answering scowl subdued Neal somewhat. "And besides, we can't mess around with this Neal. This is bigger than just some Ponzi scheme or securities fraud, this is a murder case, and we are dealing with a psychopath. Are we clear on this?"

It was rare that Neal ever saw Peter so vehemently serious. It occurred to him suddenly that Peter was profoundly disturbed by this case. Neal hadn't thought about it, really. He knew he had found the idea of a serial killer and death personally abhorrent, but had assumed Peter was rolling with the punches like a good FBI agent would. It wasn't as if Peter was totally unfamiliar with cases like these.

"Right," Neal replied, glancing at Lauren. "I'll get us back safe, okay?"

Peter nodded as Neal pulled the car out of the FBI parking structure and into the stream of midday, Manhattan traffic. Lauren was quiet beside him, reviewing her notes. Neal could sense the nerves, the subtle worry. Perhaps choosing Lauren hadn't been the smartest call. This was her first undercover assignment, after all.

"I'll be fine," Lauren snapped, as if reading his thoughts. She softened her words with a vague smile. "Really, I haven't done this before, but I can pull it off. I have a drama minor after all, I think I can pull of stupid rich."

"Drama minor?" Neal grinned as he stopped at a light. "Really, Lauren Cruz, I'd have never have thought of it. I thought you were fascinated by thieves and con men like me."

He knew she had studied him and his case while at Quantico, and he admitted to being secretly delighted by that. But Lauren laughed at him, shaking her head. "You never lack for bravura, do you Caffrey?"

"I might have had a moment or two, maybe."

That earned a chuckle out of Lauren who relaxed visibly. "This is easy for you," she muttered, waving her notes in his general direction. "You fall into rolls as easily as if your were breathing. A lie practically rolls off your lips. But this is my job we are talking about here."

Neal nodded, taking in her words. "It's my job too, Lauren. And none of what I do is easy."

She quiet long moments before answering. "Of course not. I'm sorry that I implied that it was."

Neal knew she hadn't meant anything by it. Lauren, like most of the White Collar office, all assumed much about Neal without bothering to truly get to know him. Neal didn't mind, and in fact encouraged these misperceptions about him. Being so well known by anyone made him nervous, itchy. Peter was the only one who truly knew Neal, and even he had his doubts sometimes. But it occurred to Neal as he poured through the files he had sitting in his apartment, the ones that told the lives of Mulder and Scully, that sometimes obfuscation could be just as dangerous as being an open book. How many stories and half-truths had he heard about the pair just in the few days since he heard their name first mentioned? Spooky Mulder they had called him, content to accept the perception without getting to know the truth behind it. Something about that bothered Neal, and he couldn't figure out why.

"How did you get into this racket anyway," Lauren asked conversationally. Neal winced, knowing she was trying to make the peace somewhat.

"Long story," he replied, his mother coming inexplicably to mind. "It's a funny one, but long. And sort of crazy." Looking back, how he fell into this world seemed more like fodder for a Hollywood film than real life. "But let's just say that it started out innocently enough. And then it just…happened."

"Isn't that what they all say?"

"Well, most of them say at least," Neal replied, wending through traffic easily as he could see their target up ahead. "Most of them say it because it's true."

"You think that all people who end up where you're at started by being just innocent pawns in a scheme?" Lauren sounded doubtful. Neal sighed. Lauren was still too attached to the standard, FBI mindset of black and white, and couldn't yet see the shades of gray that surrounded the real world. He thought of Mulder then, just a guy, who had a sister who went missing, and what is life became. Mozzy's words of warning flashed to him then.

"I think life happens, Lauren. And we all just roll with it as best as we can." He pulled up to the valet parking in front of the tall, towering office building that serviced Bridgeport Financial group. "So, Ms. Polanco, ready for your meeting?"


End file.
